UFO or Not UFO?
by LuckyLadybug
Summary: CONCLUDED WITH CHAPTERS 19 AND 20! PLEASE READ AND LEAVE A NICE REVIEW! I LUV Kaiba! I am NOT bashing him! The YuGiOh! gang takes on a mystery that is out of this world, and dangerous twists surprise them at every turn!
1. UFO Sightings

You-Gi-Oh!  
UFO or Not UFO?  
By Lucky_Ladybug  
  
  
Notes: The characters aren't mine ^_~ Thanx to JP for the title! ^^ And oh, just in case there's any Gomer Pyle fans reading this who remember a fanfic called "The Flying Saucer Caper," I wrote that too . . . just in case I borrow some of the ideas from that story, y'all will know that I wasn't stealing someone else's ideas! ^_~ Hehe . . . Oh, and this isn't yaoi ^_~  
  
  
Joey sighed and blinked, sitting up in bed. Something had woken him up . . . but what was it? He couldn't see anything that had fallen over. But as he slowly returned to awareness, he suddenly realized that his bedroom was as light as noonday.  
  
"Wait a minute . . ." he muttered. "Where's that light comin' from?"  
  
He stumbled out of bed and over to his window. The entire yard was bathed in some strange green light that was coming from the sky . . . no, wait . . . from that weird disk *in* the sky!  
  
Joey stared at it and then rubbed at his eyes, certain he was hallucinating. The disk remained floating over his house for several more minutes and then suddenly vanished into thin air.  
  
"Oh man, did I just see what I thought I saw?" Joey exclaimed in disbelief.  
****  
By the next morning, Joey discovered that he definitely had seen it, and that, in fact, most of Domino City had.  
  
"Joey! Have you heard about the flying saucer?" Yugi called, running up to Joey just outside the school.  
  
"Yeah, I sure did, Yug," Joey replied. "It flew right over my place!"  
  
Yugi's violet eyes went wide. "Really, Joey?" he exclaimed.  
  
"That's right," Joey nodded.  
  
"This is the second sighting of a UFO in Domino City in the past two weeks," Yugi remarked. Fourteen days earlier, at the beginning of the month, a frantic man had encountered Yugi and his friends and had claimed to have seen a flying saucer in a field, but when the teens had gone to investigate, they had found nothing.  
  
"You think there's somethin' to it, Yug?" Joey asked curiously.  
  
"I don't know," Yugi said slowly.  
  
"Hey guys!" Tea waved as she came over to them, Tristan in tow. "Have you heard about the . . ."  
  
"It flew over my house," Joey interrupted, and this started another flurry of conversation about the flying saucer and what it might mean.  
  
"Has anyone seen Bakura?" Tristan said suddenly.  
  
Yugi blinked. "Bakura? No, I haven't seen him," he said.  
  
"Here I am!" the silver-haired boy called, running up to join his friends. "I was investigating a strange piece of metal I found outside my house."  
  
"Strange piece of metal?" Yugi repeated.  
  
Bakura nodded. "I couldn't figure out what it was or where it had came from, so I called the police to have a look. They couldn't determine what it was either, but they're taking it to their laboratory to study it further."  
  
"Hey, that's kinda freaky, man," Joey gulped. "Maybe it fell off the flyin' saucer!"  
  
"That's what I was wondering myself," Bakura admitted.  
  
"What does your Yami think about it, Bakura?" Tea asked curiously.  
  
"I don't know," Bakura replied with a shrug. "He didn't tell me, but I could tell he wasn't pleased."  
  
Joey laughed. "The only thing that would please that guy is conquerin' the world . . . and maybe drinking a bottle of chocolate milk."  
  
Tristan snickered.  
  
"Shouldn't you five be getting to class?" a familiar voice said dryly.  
  
Everyone turned to see Seto Kaiba standing by the door, watching them.  
  
"Hey, Kaiba," Yugi said with a smile. "Yeah, we should. We've just been talking about the latest flying saucer sighting."  
  
Seto raised an eyebrow. "I'm sure it's just a publicity stunt of some kind. There is that new alien movie being filmed around here, you know."  
  
"Man, there you go again with the refusal to believe in freaky things," Joey declared, shaking his head.  
  
Before Seto had a chance to reply, the bell rang, and everyone had to hurry into the homeroom.  
  
Yugi was startled when he found a note on his desk. "What's this?" he exclaimed.  
  
"I dunno, man," Joey said, looking over his shoulder. "Open it!"  
  
Yugi carefully lifted the flap, which hadn't been sealed, and pulled out a single sheet of paper with a typed message on it. "'Your recent defeat of the vampyres has come to our attention,'" he read. "'That was very impressive and clever . . . but will you be able to stand up to us and our threat?'" He laid the paper back down on his desk, blinking in surprise.  
  
"Who's it from, Yug?" Joey asked.  
  
"It's not signed," Yugi told him, and then shrugged. "It's probably just one of Mark Binsen's practical jokes." Mark was the class clown of Domino High School, and he was always doing one obnoxious thing or another.  
  
"I dunno, Yug," Joey said doubtfully, taking the paper and envelope and staring at them. "This is some kinda freaky paper. I've never felt anything like it before."  
  
Yugi laughed gently. "Oh, Joey, surely you're not thinking . . ."  
  
"Well, it's possible, isn't it?" Joey returned.  
  
Yugi shook his head, his black and red spikes of hair swaying with the action. "Joey, I can't believe that aliens would decide to send a message to me, of all people."  
  
"And why not, pal?" Joey demanded. "Look at all the cool things you've done over the past couple of years—you defeated Pegasus, rescued Kaiba from his virtual reality game, caught a nest of criminals at Carl's ski lodge, and now stopped a bunch of power-hungry vampyres from takin' over the world! I don't see any reason why you wouldn't be comin' to the attention of some extra-terrestrials."  
  
"I don't know, Joey," Yugi said slowly. He was about to say more when the teacher began the roll call and they had to turn their attention to her.  
****  
It was in the evening when the five friends heard about the next crazy occurrence. After dinner at Yugi's place, they were all lounging around in the living room while Tristan channel surfed the TV.  
  
"Come on, Tristan, just pick a show and stick with it," Joey complained.  
  
"Wait, what's that?" Tea exclaimed, and Tristan turned up the volume.  
  
"Police and the army are trying to determine why the UFO landed in the cornfield and what exactly it is," the reporter was saying, while footage of a giant saucer was played in the background. "They have not decided yet if it's from outer space, but they are not ruling out that possibility."  
  
"Whoa!" Joey exclaimed. "A UFO parked itself right in that cornfield just outside of town? You're kiddin' me!"  
  
"What do you think, Yugi?" Tea asked. "Should we go have a look?"  
  
Yugi was about to reply when the reporter continued, "The footage we're playing is from thirty minutes before. As of now, the UFO has suddenly taken its leave of the cornfield, vanishing into thin air and completely perplexing the army." She went on to say that the police and the army would remain at the site in an attempt to gather clues.  
  
Yugi looked at the screen thoughtfully. "I doubt they'd let us in, Tea," he said finally, "but they probably won't be there all night. Why don't we try investigating about midnight or so?"  
  
"Good idea, pal," Joey grinned. "Let's do it!"  
****  
When they arrived at the cornfield, the night sky had clouded over, as if it might rain or even snow. The place was deserted now, but yellow "Do Not Cross" tape went around in a huge circle of matted-down cornstalks off to the side of the field.  
  
"That must be where the UFO landed," Bakura remarked.  
  
Yugi nodded and summoned his Yami.  
  
"I doubt we'll find any clues here," Tea said. "I'm sure if there was anything, the police or the army already found it."  
  
"Well, if they did, they sure as heck didn't tell us," Joey replied, referring to the ten o'clock news broadcast in which an army captain had been interviewed saying that they hadn't found any clues to the UFO or its pilot.  
  
"They might not tell us if they did find something, you know," Tristan spoke up. "There's that place in the Nevada desert that's rumored to be the hiding place of all the evidence about extra-terrestrial beings."  
  
There was silence for a minute, then Yugi said, "Well, it's also possible that they might have missed something, so that's what we're going to look for." He looked around. "Let's split up," he suggested. "This cornfield is huge, and we don't want this to take all night," he said with a wry smile. "And for now, let's not cross over the yellow tape."  
  
All of the teens agreed and scattered in different directions.  
  
Joey and Tristan were investigating the scarecrow—which, Joey said with a laugh, wasn't getting up and walking away, and that was just fine with him—when they heard Tea scream from somewhere deep in the field.  
  
"Oh man, I wonder what's up!" Joey muttered as they hurried to find out.  
  
"Tea, what's wrong?" Yugi called as he and Bakura came running from the other direction.  
  
"Are you hurt?" Bakura chimed in.  
  
"You screamed loud enough to wake the dead," Joey exclaimed.  
  
Tea was backed up against a stalk of corn that was taller than she was, shaking in fear and horror. "I'm not hurt," she said finally, "but . . . look." She pointed a finger shakily at a limp hand hanging out from between two cornstalks. "There's a dead body in here!!" 


	2. Mysterious Discoveries

NOTE: Just the usual "this is not yaoi" reminder ;D  
  
  
Everyone gasped in horror at Tea's announcement.  
  
"Oh man . . ." Joey muttered.  
  
Bakura looked faint. "Oh dear . . . oh dear . . . how horrible!"  
  
"Yugi, what do we do?" Tea asked. "Shouldn't we call someone or something? . . ."  
  
Yugi looked grim as he parted the cornstalks and looked down. "Oh no," he said softly.  
  
"What is it, Yug?" Joey asked as he and the others gathered around, but then they all gasped.  
  
"Oh no . . . it can't be . . ." Tea whispered.  
  
"It's Kaiba!" Tristan exclaimed.  
  
"Oh brother . . . what happened to him?!" Joey wondered, looking at the other boy's lifeless, tortured body. "What the heck is he doin' layin' . . . dead in this cornfield?!" He couldn't believe that Kaiba was really gone . . . just like that.  
  
"I don't know, but . . ." Yugi looked up. "We're not far from where the UFO landed. . . ."  
  
"And you're sayin' the aliens—or whoever—did this to him?" Joey asked.  
  
Yugi nodded slowly. "It's possible."  
  
"Poor Kaiba . . ." Tea knelt down next to the boy's body and gently smoothed back his long bangs. "I . . . I know I never liked him very much, but . . . I can't believe he's really . . ."  
  
Yugi smiled faintly. "I don't think he is."  
  
Almost as soon as Yugi had spoken, Seto groaned, raising a hand to rub his head.  
  
Joey let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. "Oh man . . . he really had me scared there . . ."  
  
Seto's eyes opened slowly. "Tea?" he rasped, trying to focus.  
  
Tea nodded. "I'm here, Kaiba. . . . We're all here. . . ."  
  
Seto blinked, looking confused and unable to get his bearings.  
  
"Kaiba, you're laying in a cornfield," Yugi told him.  
  
Seto's expression didn't change. "A . . . cornfield? Is this your idea of a joke?"  
  
"It's no joke," Yugi said, shaking his head.  
  
"Yeah, man," Joey spoke up. "We all thought you were . . ."  
  
"Dead, I know," Seto grumbled, sitting up.  
  
"Hey, take it easy," Tristan told him. "You're pretty banged up."  
  
Seto ignored him, trying to stand up anyway, and nearly fell over.  
  
"Listen to someone besides yourself for once," Joey said, rolling his eyes.  
  
"We should get you to the hospital, Kaiba," Yugi said, reaching out to help steady the other boy.  
  
Seto gently pushed him away. "I don't think so. It's just a few scratches. I can clean them up myself."  
  
"A few scratches!" Tea repeated. "I don't think so," she said, borrowing Kaiba's phrase. "Look at yourself, Kaiba—you're bleeding!"  
  
Seto suddenly became aware of the blood that was trickling down his face and he brushed it away angrily. "I'm alright," he muttered, seeing Tea's worried expression. "I don't need to go to any hospital."  
  
Joey smirked. "The only way you could get Kaiba to the hospital is if he was unconscious."  
  
Seto raised an eyebrow. "Don't get any ideas, Wheeler," he warned.  
  
Yugi chuckled at that, then turned serious again. "Kaiba, what's the last thing you remember?"  
  
Seto shook his head, looking absolutely and completely bewildered. "A bright light . . . pain . . . torment . . . that's all I remember."  
  
"Eh, so you have no clue as to where you were or how you got there?" Joey asked.  
  
"No, I don't," Seto replied, looking around. "I am curious as to why you're all here . . . or do I really want to know?" He smirked.  
  
"We're investigating the latest UFO sighting," Tea told him.  
  
Seto nodded slowly. "I suspected as much."  
  
Yugi looked at him worriedly. "Are you sure we shouldn't call a doctor or something, Kaiba? You might be hurt worse than you think you are."  
  
"That's right," Bakura nodded. "And not being able to recall what happened is never a good sign."  
  
Seto sighed. "I'll be fine. If I need to see a doctor, I will." He fished around among the cornstalks and pulled out his briefcase.  
  
Joey grinned. "Yugi thinks you were kidnapped by aliens."  
  
Seto turned to stare at Yugi, who looked embarrassed. "Well, I didn't say that, exactly . . . I said that maybe whoever was in the UFO that landed here earlier attacked you."  
  
"Yeah, but the most logical explanation is that it was aliens, right, Yug?" Joey grinned.  
  
Yugi scratched his head. "Uh, well . . ."  
  
Seto turned away. "Never mind. If you don't have any objections, I'm going to take my leave." He dialed his chauffeur on the cell phone.  
  
"We don't have any objections, if you're sure you're alright," Tea said when he hung up.  
  
"I am," Seto told her.  
  
Before long the limo pulled up and Seto stumbled into it, after saying goodbye to Yugi and the others, who were planning to continue their search of the cornfield.  
  
"I hope Kaiba really is okay," Yugi said worriedly. "I think he was limping."  
  
"Yeah, I noticed that too," Joey agreed.  
  
"Do you think he was really attacked by whatever was in that UFO, Yugi?" Tea asked.  
  
Yugi sighed. "I don't know, Tea. . . . If he was, then why? . . . And why didn't the police or the army find him?"  
  
"Yeah, I mean you'd think they'd notice a body laying in a cornfield," Joey said.  
  
Tea cringed, remembering the horror she'd felt upon discovering Seto's limp, bloody hand laying among the cornstalks. That was a nightmarish image that would likely stay with her for a long time.  
****  
Seto sighed as he got out of the limo and walked up to his mansion. Try as he might, he could not remember anything about what had happened. It wasn't that easy to take him by surprise and then get away with it . . . but he couldn't have been kidnapped by aliens . . . could he? It sounded so ridiculous . . .  
  
When he opened the door, he was suddenly overcome by a wave of dizziness and nearly collapsed on the floor, but as quickly as it had come, it passed, and the boy stumbled into the house.  
  
"Big brother!" Mokuba gasped, coming out from the library upon hearing the door open. "You're hurt!"  
  
Seto tried to smile weakly. "I'll be alright, Mokuba . . . I just need to rest . . ." He limped over to the couch and collapsed on it.  
  
Mokuba climbed up next to him, looking horrified. "Oh, big brother . . . what happened to you?"  
  
"I wish I knew, Mokuba," Seto replied, rubbing at his aching temples. "I woke up laying in a cornfield with Yugi Muto and his friends gathered around me."  
  
Mokuba gasped. "Should I go find the first aid kit, big brother?"  
  
Seto tried to act strong and not worry his brother, but he was suddenly too powerless to do anything of the sort. He nodded weakly. "Yeah, Mokuba . . . maybe you'd better." He found himself falling into oblivion.  
****  
When Seto next opened his eyes, Mokuba was looking down at him worriedly. When he saw that his beloved brother was awake, the little boy hugged him tightly, looking immensely relieved. "Oh Seto! I was so worried . . ."  
  
Seto hugged him back. "What happened, Mokuba?" he asked.  
  
"You fainted, big brother!" Mokuba told him.  
  
"Fainted, huh?" Seto rose up slowly. He was still on the couch, but Mokuba—or someone—had laid him across it, and his shirt was unbuttoned, revealing a nasty-looking red mark across his chest.  
  
Mokuba nodded. "You'd better just rest now, Seto," he said, laying a hand on his brother's shoulder.  
  
Seto sighed and leaned back against the couch. "Mokuba . . . how long was I unconscious?" he asked.  
  
"Just a few minutes," Mokuba replied, "but it was still really scary to see you like that, big brother," he whispered.  
  
Seto hugged his brother comfortingly. "It's alright, Mokuba," he said softly. "I'm alright."  
****  
Seto took a long look at himself in the mirror. He didn't look sick, exactly . . . but he did look pretty beat up. He had obviously been through some kind of rough ordeal . . . one that he couldn't even remember a thing about.  
  
He examined the red mark on his chest. It looked like the result of an assault with a whip in some ways, but in other ways it didn't look like anything he'd seen before.  
  
"What happened to me?" Seto muttered as he climbed into bed after cleaning his wounds. He soon slipped into a troubled sleep, peppered with odd and uneasy dreams filled with pain and torture.  
  
Later that night, Seto awoke suddenly from his nightmare, breathing heavily. He couldn't remember his dream in detail, but one part stood out—a part in which he was being struck down by a laser beam. Seto knew that it was not just a random nightmare; deep in his subconscious mind, he was remembering what had happened, recalling the memories that had been erased.  
  
He growled to himself. Whoever had done this to him was going to be sorry. It looked like he was now involved in a new mystery, whether he wanted to be or not.  
****  
Seto was awakened the next morning by the sharp jangling of the telephone. With a groan, the injured boy groped for the receiver and finally found it. "Kaiba," he muttered.  
  
"Hey, Kaiba," came Yugi's familiar voice.  
  
"I'm fine, Yugi," Seto replied dryly, already having figured out what the other boy was calling about.  
  
"You sure, man?" Joey's voice came on the line. "We heard you passed out."  
  
Seto groaned inwardly. "Maybe you heard wrong, Wheeler," he snapped.  
  
"I don't think so." Joey snickered, picking up on the embarrassed tone to Seto's voice.  
  
Seto rolled his eyes. "Wheeler, do you know what time it is?!"  
  
"Yeah," Joey replied. "It's about five-thirty in the morning."  
  
"Exactly," Seto grumbled, and hung up.  
****  
Joey looked at the receiver briefly and then put it back in its cradle. "He hung up on me," he announced.  
  
Yugi shook his head worriedly. "I wish he wouldn't be quite so independent all the time," he sighed. "I'm afraid he really is hurt bad and he just won't admit it."  
  
Joey shrugged. "That's Kaiba for ya," he said, idly turning on the TV. A picture of a pretty reporter came on, and in the background was a mansion in the high-class neighborhood of Summit Hills, a suburb of Domino City.  
  
"I'm here reporting at Summit Hills, where there's been a strange break-in," the reporter was saying.  
  
"I see," the news anchor said thoughtfully. "Kim, what is so strange about this particular break-in?" she asked.  
  
The reporter called Kim paused, then said, "Well, Janet, what's odd about this break-in is that the robbers appeared to be aliens!" 


	3. Summit Hills

NOTES: No, there is not supposed to be anything "going on" between Kaiba and Tea! ^_~ LOL . . . I just like to put them in cute scenes together ;) Also, I don't know where Mai lives, but I wanted to finally get her into my fanfics, so if something is a bit off from what it is on the show, deal with it! ^_~  
  
  
"Aliens?!" Joey exclaimed. "Alien burglars?! What next?!"  
  
Yugi blinked. "That does sound kind of odd," he admitted.  
  
"Aliens," the news anchor mused, also looking befuddled. "Tell us, Kim—did they get away with anything?"  
  
Kim shook her head. "Not that we know of, Janet. Nothing has been reported stolen, but the burglars did break into five different houses before disappearing."  
  
"Man, this is too weird," Joey muttered.  
  
"The police have decided that the intruders were most likely criminals simply dressed up to look like aliens," Kim continued.  
  
"That sounds logical," Yugi mused. "But why didn't they take anything?"  
  
Joey groaned. "Man, this mystery is freaky. We shouldn't have stayed up all night lookin' through that cornfield," he sighed, stifling a yawn. "I think I'll go home and go to bed, Yug."  
  
"That's a good idea, Joey," Yugi agreed. "You know, I'm sure Kaiba wasn't any too pleased about being disturbed at this hour," he laughed.  
  
Joey laughed too. "Heh, I'm sure you're right, Yug." He got up to leave. "I'll see you later, man."  
  
"Bye, Joey," Yugi said, watching him go out the door. It had been some day. We'll have to visit Summit Hills later, he decided as he climbed into bed.  
****  
Seto opened his eyes slowly and ran a hand through his long bangs. After several more nightmarish recollections in his dreams, he had finally slipped into a more peaceful sleep shortly after Yugi and Joey had called at five-thirty in the morning.  
  
He glanced around the room and started when he saw the clock announcing the arrival of noon. He had slept much longer than he had meant to.  
  
The door opened and Mokuba peeked in. "Big brother! You're awake!" he exclaimed happily, running in to embrace his brother. "How're you feeling, Seto?" he asked, looking up at the older boy with his wide gray eyes.  
  
Seto smiled. "Better than last night, Mokuba," he said wryly. He paused. "Speaking of which . . . Mokuba, did you tell Yugi and his friends that I passed out?" he demanded.  
  
Mokuba looked guilty. "I'm sorry, Seto. . . . But I was just so worried about you. . . . I mean, you usually always try to say that you're okay and everything, even when you're really not, but last night you were kinda admitting that you didn't feel well, and then you fainted like that. . . . I was so scared, Seto . . . I don't wanna lose you, big brother!" A tear slipped down the little boy's cheek.  
  
Seto's expression softened. "Don't worry, Mokuba. It's alright. I'm not going to leave you." Not if I can help it, anyway, he added silently. One of his biggest fears was that one day he would die and that Mokuba would be left all alone. He couldn't let that happen—not ever.  
  
"Are you mad at me for telling them?" Mokuba asked.  
  
Seto shook his head and ruffled Mokuba's hair. "No," he said softly. "I'm not mad." He held his brother close.  
****  
In the afternoon, Yugi, Joey, Tristan, Tea, and Bakura met outside the game shop to decide what to do next.  
  
"I think we should go to Summit Hills and see what we can find out about those alien burglars," Yugi announced.  
  
"That sounds like a good enough plan to me," Tea said, and they started walking. "Does anyone know how Kaiba is doing?" she asked suddenly.  
  
"Are you sweet on him, Tea?" Tristan grinned obnoxiously.  
  
"Of course not, Tristan!" Tea yelled. "I'm just worried about him!"  
  
"If you say so," Tristan smirked.  
  
"Mokuba called Yugi early this morning," Joey told Tea. "He was really worried 'cause he said Kaiba came home and promptly passed out on the couch."  
  
"I knew he should've gone to the doctor!" Tea exclaimed, shaking her head.  
  
Joey shrugged. "Yeah, well . . . Anyway, so then me and Yugi called him up on the phone, but he just said he was fine and hung up."  
  
"That's right," Yugi nodded with a sigh as they climbed on the bus to Summit Hills. "So we don't know how he actually is doing."  
  
"Typical Kaiba," Tristan remarked.  
  
"You said it, man," Joey laughed, shaking his head.  
****  
When they reached Summit Hills, Joey looked around goggle-eyed at all the immense mansions surrounding them. "Whoa, check it out!" he exclaimed, gesturing wildly. "Look at these places!"  
  
"I wonder which five were broken into," Bakura mused.  
  
"Let's ask that lady over there," Yugi suggested, indicating an elderly woman who was tending to her garden.  
  
The five teens walked over and the woman turned to greet them. "Why, hello," she said with a smile.  
  
"Hello, ma'am," Yugi smiled back. "I'm Yugi Muto, and these are my friends." The other four teens introduced themselves.  
  
"Well, I'm very happy to meet all of you!" the woman declared. "I'm Ruth. Now, what can I do for you today?"  
  
"Actually, Ruth, we heard about the break-ins on the news," Tea explained, "and we're kind of like amateur detectives, so we thought we'd come investigate."  
  
"Oh, is that right?" Ruth smiled. "Detectives are getting younger every day. Well, what is it you want to know?" she asked.  
  
"Well, we were wondering which houses were broken into," Yugi said.  
  
"Mine was one of them," Ruth sighed. "The other four are those two on either side of mine, and those two across the street." She pointed to two Victorian-era mansions.  
  
"Is it true that nothing was stolen, Ruth?" Tea asked.  
  
Ruth shrugged. "They didn't take any of my things, but they could've stolen from one of the other houses, I suppose. That one there is vacant." She pointed to the one across the street on the left.  
  
"Did you see the freaky alien things, Ruth?" Joey wondered.  
  
Ruth laughed at Joey's choice of words. "I certainly did!" she declared.  
  
"Did they really look like aliens?" Tristan asked.  
  
"Well, they certainly didn't look like something from this world," Ruth replied.  
  
"Hmm . . . well, what do we have here?" a new, familiar voice said from behind the teens. "I didn't know you boys and girls were into aliens now."  
  
Everyone whirled around. "Mai!" Yugi exclaimed in surprise.  
  
Mai Valentine smiled, crossing her arms. "That's right, Yugi. It's me, in the flesh. So, would someone like to explain what's going on?"  
  
Joey grinned broadly. "Well, see, Mai, it's like this—we've been solvin' mysteries lately, and we heard about the alien burglaries, and . . ."  
  
"And you decided it was the perfect new mystery," Mai finished.  
  
"Well . . . yeah," Joey said.  
  
"I think I read about your last mystery in the newspaper," Mai mused. "You defeated those bizarre vampyres, right?"  
  
Joey nodded. "That's right! Hey, with my brilliant mind on the case, we got it wrapped up in a week!"  
  
Mai raised an eyebrow. "Really," she said, sounding as though she didn't quite believe Joey's version.  
  
"Your 'brilliant mind' nearly got you and Kaiba both killed," Tristan said to Joey loudly.  
  
"Now that I can believe," Mai smirked.  
  
"Heeeeey!" Joey protested.  
  
"Well, it sounds as if you kids have a lot to talk about," Ruth said suddenly.  
  
Everyone stopped talking. They had completely forgotten that Ruth was there.  
  
"So these kids are friends of yours, Mai?" the elderly woman asked, smiling at the blonde girl.  
  
"That's right, Ruth, they're my friends—even Joey," Mai smiled. She turned back to Yugi and the others. "Ruth is my next-door neighbor."  
  
"Next-door neighbor!" Yugi exclaimed.  
  
"That's right," Ruth said. "Mai's house was broken into as well!"  
  
"That's awful," Yugi declared.  
  
"What did you do, Mai?" Tea asked, her eyes wide. "I would be so terrified to find burglars in my house!"  
  
Mai shrugged. "They obviously hadn't been expecting anyone to be home. They turned and ran as soon as they saw me and I threatened to use my knowledge of karate on them."  
  
"You know karate, Mai?" Joey asked, looking surprised. "I never knew that about you."  
  
"There's a lot of things you don't know about me, Joey," Mai replied, tossing her head. "Anyway, after they came to my place, they went to Ruth's, then the O'Connells'. Then they went across the street and broke into the Hendersons' and the abandoned house before disappearing into thin air."  
  
"Oh my," Bakura exclaimed.  
  
"Mai, do you know where the burglars were when they disappeared?" Yugi asked.  
  
"Everyone saw them," Mai replied. "They were standing on the balcony at the vacant place over there and they just suddenly disappeared in a cloud of smoke."  
  
"A smokescreen trick?" Yugi wondered.  
  
"Well, that's what the police thought at first, but there's really no place the burglars could have gone from the balcony, unless they went back into the house and downstairs, but by then the police would have already been inside," Mai told them.  
  
"This is gettin' freaky!" Joey declared.  
  
"We should have a look at that balcony," Yugi mused.  
  
"Be my guests," Mai shrugged.  
  
Everyone said goodbye to Ruth and then they walked across the street to the vacated mansion.  
  
"Just curious, Mai—who used to live here and why did they move?" Joey asked.  
  
"It was a young, obnoxious couple," Mai told him. "They always had something to complain about, and eventually they moved away. I can't say I was sorry to see them go." She paused. "So what's Kaiba been up to? I heard he was helping you guys solve your mysteries." They reached the house and Mai pointed up to the very top. "That's where the aliens were standing," she announced.  
  
"Whoa, man, no wonder everyone's baffled," Joey remarked. "There's nowhere to run up there!"  
  
"Exactly." Mai nodded.  
  
"Hey, what if they went up that tree there?" Joey suggested, pointing to a majestic old oak next to the house.  
  
"Well, it's possible, I guess," Yugi said slowly.  
  
"Tell you what—I'll go scale that tree and see if I can get over into it before the smokescreen would've faded away," Joey announced, and before anyone could stop him, he was leaping up into the tree's strong branches.  
  
"Joey! Be careful!" Tea called.  
  
"Don't worry about me," Joey called back. "I used to be pretty good at this."  
  
Knowing there wasn't any way to stop him, the five teens watched him climb the large tree, and Yugi suddenly remembered Mai's question. "Kaiba has been helping us on the mysteries," he told her.  
  
"Has he changed any?" Mai asked, remembering when she'd met him in the Virtual Reality game.  
  
"Some," Yugi said slowly.  
  
"Yeah, but he's still got that independent attitude," Tea grumbled.  
  
Mai laughed. "I doubt he'd ever drop that," she remarked.  
  
"Hey!" Joey yelled, and everyone looked up. "Alright, I'm on the balcony," he announced, leaning over the edge. "Mai, how long was it before the smokescreen disappeared?" he asked.  
  
"Probably just five or ten seconds," she called back.  
  
"Joey, you can't try to jump over to the tree so fast," Bakura objected.  
  
"None of the branches are even touching the balcony!" Yugi exclaimed.  
  
"Hey, I can do it, no problem!" Joey grinned. "Okay, now let's say I've activated the smokescreen now. Time me, Tristan!" With that, Joey backed up, took a running leap, and barely managed to grab on to the end of a branch. Looking a bit panicked, he struggled to scramble up on the branch and finally succeeded. "How long did that take, Tristan?" he called down.  
  
Tristan looked at his watch. "About thirty seconds. Not bad, but not fast enough."  
  
"Somehow, I don't think this is going to work," Mai muttered.  
  
That's when a disembodied voice intoned eerily, "Be assured it won't! Your friend may have survived this time, but next time he will meet his doom! Get out while you still can!" A clap of thunder boomed, almost in emphasis.  
  
"Whoa, what was that?!" Joey exclaimed.  
  
"I don't know, Joey, but you'd better come down from there now," Yugi warned. "It sounds like there's a thunderstorm on the way!" 


	4. VaseThrowing ExtraTerrestrials!

NOTE: I luv Kaiba's independent streak too! ^_^ **huggles!**  
  
  
"A thunder storm?!" Joey exclaimed.  
  
A bolt of lightning streaked across the sky.  
  
"Oh man, I'm comin' down," the Brooklyn boy declared, quickly descending from the tree. He looked around. "Where's the freaky guy who gave us the warning?"  
  
"Good question," Mai mused.  
  
"There's no place for anyone to hide in the yard," Tea realized. "They must have been inside!"  
  
"Well then, let's go in and find him!" Joey slammed his fist into his palm determinedly.  
  
"I don't think that's a good idea, Joey," Yugi cautioned.  
  
Bakura nodded. "If the tree is struck by lightning, it will probably fall over on the house. They've been trying for years to get this tree cut down because of the safety hazards," he explained.  
  
Joey sighed in resignation.  
  
"I don't think you'll learn anything new from either the O'Connells or the Hendersons," Mai told them. "Our experiences were all pretty much the same. None of them are home now, anyway," she shrugged. "But they should be back late tomorrow night," she added.  
  
"Where did they all go?" Tea wondered.  
  
"They went somewhere to get away from all the reporters bothering them about the aliens," Mai replied.  
  
"Well, alright," Yugi said slowly as the rain started to fall. "We'll be back tomorrow. But before we go, Mai, can you describe the burglars?"  
  
Mai paused. "Not much to describe. They looked like the typical movie aliens—you know, big heads, green skin, black eyes. . . ."  
  
Yugi nodded. "Well, thanks, Mai. We'll see you later!" He and the others started to walk back to the bus stop, where a bus was just pulling up.  
  
"Hey," Mai called after them, "is there anything I can do to help?"  
  
"See if you can find any clues the police might have missed," Yugi suggested as they hurried to catch the bus.  
****  
Thirty minutes later, the five teens went up the walkway that led to Seto Kaiba's mansion. When they reached the porch, Yugi rang the doorbell, and soon the door was opened by Velma.  
  
"Why, hello," the maid smiled.  
  
"Hi," Yugi smiled back. "Is Seto Kaiba here?"  
  
Velma hesitated. "Well . . ."  
  
"Hey, we're here to talk about the case," Joey told her.  
  
"Well, he's here, alright," Velma admitted, twisting her dustmop in her hands. "But I don't know if he wants to see anyone . . ."  
  
"Is he badly hurt?" Tea asked.  
  
"Oh, he never tells me anything like that," Velma replied. She paused. "Tell ya what—c'mon in and I'll find Mokuba."  
  
"Okay," Yugi agreed, and he and the others went in. "Thank you," he smiled.  
  
Velma scurried off and soon returned with Mokuba in tow.  
  
"Hey guys!" the little boy smiled.  
  
"Hey kid," Joey greeted.  
  
"How's your brother, Mokuba?" Yugi asked.  
  
"He's feeling a lot better, thank heavens," Mokuba told them. "Right now, he's working in his home office. You wanna see him?"  
  
"If he doesn't mind," Yugi said.  
  
Mokuba led them down a long hall and then knocked on a door at the end. "Big brother? Can we come in?"  
  
"'We'?" Seto sounded puzzled.  
  
Mokuba opened the door a crack. "Yugi and the others are here, big brother," he explained.  
  
Seto sighed. "They can come in," he said finally.  
  
Mokuba opened the door the rest of the way and walked in. "Come on," he said, and the others followed.  
  
Seto was sitting in a chair reading a company report. His brown hair was combed in its normal, neat style, and he had bandages on the back of his right hand and on his left wrist. Tea could see that under his long bangs there seemed to be another one on his forehead. He was wearing his blue trenchcoat and his shirt was open. He quickly pulled it shut and looked up. "What is it you want, Yugi?" he asked.  
  
"We've been up at Summit Hills," Yugi told him. "We thought we'd drop by here on our way back."  
  
Seto nodded slowly.  
  
"Hey, Kaiba, man, what was that weird mark I saw on your chest?" Joey asked suddenly.  
  
Seto wrapped his still-unbuttoned shirt closer around him. "None of your concern, Wheeler."  
  
"Hey, man, you don't havta be so aloof," Joey protested. "We're just worried about you, Kaiba."  
  
"You don't need to be." A flicker of embarrassment and discomfort shone in Seto's eyes and he quickly looked down at the report he was holding. He wasn't used to people other than Mokuba fussing over him, and he didn't really like it. He hated for it to appear that he couldn't take care of himself. "Now, did you come to make a fuss over me or to discuss the case?" he asked.  
  
"Well, Kaiba . . ." Joey grinned. "To be perfectly honest, what happened to you is a big part of the case."  
  
Seto rolled his eyes. "Gee, I've always wanted to be scrutinized like an amoeba under a microscope."  
  
Before anyone could reply to that, something crashed in the hall, and a loud scream echoed through the mansion.  
  
"What was that?!" Joey gasped.  
  
Seto didn't answer. He leaped up and ran out the door, and the others quickly followed. They found Velma in the hallway, shaking in terror, a broken vase on the floor at her feet.  
  
"What happened?" Seto demanded.  
  
"Oh, Mr. Kaiba, it was horrible!" the Southern maid wailed. "It was lookin' in at me with those nasty ol' big eyes, and then it threw that vase at me!"  
  
"What was?" Yugi exclaimed.  
  
"One of them horrible alien critters!" Velma declared.  
  
"Aliens?!" everyone repeated, shocked.  
  
"Where is it now?" Seto wanted to know.  
  
"It . . . it just vanished!" Velma cried.  
  
"In a cloud of smoke?" Seto asked.  
  
"No," Velma denied, shaking her head, "it just plum vanished right in front of my eyes!"  
  
Seto laid a hand on Velma's shoulder. "You'd better go lay down, Velma," he said kindly. "You look upset."  
  
Velma nodded shakily and disappeared into a room down the hall.  
  
"What do you think she saw, Kaiba?" Tea asked.  
  
Seto looked down at the pieces of broken vase. "I'm not sure." He didn't say more, but he had to wonder if Velma's nephew Tom was playing some kind of practical joke on his hapless aunt. Or was it possible that . . .  
  
His train of thought was interrupted as he suddenly became aware that Joey was staring at him. "What? What is it, Wheeler?"  
  
Joey responded by pointing at Seto's chest.  
  
Seto's eyes narrowed. In all the excitement about the alien, he had completely forgotten that his shirt was still open. Without saying a word, he turned around and buttoned it, not wanting Joey to make a big deal about the odd mark across his chest. "My maid tends to be very excitable," he said finally, changing the subject.  
  
"So, do you think she was seeing things, Kaiba?" Yugi asked.  
  
"I don't know what she saw," Seto replied, "but I've never known her to hallucinate before. And I'm certain that she didn't break the vase herself." He turned back to face the others again.  
  
"So . . . what do we do, Kaiba?" Joey asked.  
  
Seto surveyed the room. Nothing looked out of place, except for the broken vase. "The window's shut," he remarked. "There's nowhere an intruder could have gone, unless . . ."  
  
"Unless he really did vanish, like Velma said," Tristan finished.  
  
Bakura's eyes widened. "Oh my," he said softly.  
  
Seto shook his head. "This whole thing is ridiculous."  
  
"What should we do, Yugi?" Tea asked.  
  
"Let's clean up the vase and see if we can have one of the bigger pieces dusted for fingerprints," Yugi suggested.  
  
Before long, the teens had done just that, and, using some flour and Velma's dustmop, Bakura examined the largest piece of the broken vase. "There aren't any prints on this piece," he informed the others, "and I don't think any of the other pieces are big enough to hope to get a complete print from them."  
  
"I didn't expect anything else," Seto said in his normal, cold voice. "Either what Velma saw was a person dressed as an alien, or . . ." He stopped.  
  
"Startin' to believe in the weird and freaky?" Joey grinned.  
  
"I keep my mind open to all possibilities," Seto replied indifferently.  
  
"Oh, by the way, Kaiba, we saw Mai today," Yugi said. "She asked about you."  
  
Seto raised an eyebrow. "You didn't tell her what happened to me yesterday, did you?"  
  
Yugi shook his head. "We didn't," he assured the blue-eyed boy.  
  
Seto nodded, looking satisfied.  
  
"So, what's the plan, Yug?" Joey asked. "How're we gonna solve this crazy case?"  
  
Yugi paused. "I'm not sure," he admitted.  
  
That's when Mokuba came in, his gray eyes wide. "I just heard that a flying saucer flew over the canyons!" he exclaimed.  
  
Everyone turned to look at the little boy. "How long ago was this, Mokuba?" Yugi asked.  
  
"Just recently," Mokuba replied. "About forty-five minutes ago. The police and the army haven't found any clues yet."  
  
"Well, I don't know how reliable they are for findin' clues," Joey remarked, glancing at Seto. "If Tea hadn't seen your hand hangin' out of the cornfield and thought there was a dead body in there, who knows if you'd be okay now!"  
  
Mokuba gasped, his eyes widening. He hadn't heard anything like that before. He looked up at Seto, horrified. Seto hugged his brother comfortingly and glared at Joey.  
  
Joey stopped and blinked, realizing everyone was giving him dark looks. "Eh, sorry, kid," he apologized to Mokuba. "I didn't mean to upset you." He tried to make up for what he'd said. "Hey, I'm sure your brother would've woken up anyway," he tried to reassure the younger boy.  
  
"Of course I would have, Mokuba," Seto said softly. "But let's not think about the what ifs. I'm fine now, little brother."  
  
"Hey, Kaiba," Tristan said, remembering something and trying to change the subject, "how did you know about the aliens vanishing in a cloud of smoke?"  
  
Seto shrugged. "I watch the news," he replied.  
  
Suddenly the phone in the hall rang and Seto answered it. "Kaiba," he said gruffly, then paused, looking surprised. "What? Yes, he's here . . . Hold on. . . ." He handed the phone to Yugi. "It's Mai Valentine," he told the violet-eyed boy.  
  
Yugi was startled. "Mai?" he said into the phone. "What's going on? How did you know we were at Kaiba's place?"  
  
"I heard you say you might drop by there on your way back to town," Mai replied. "But anyway, I remembered something that might be useful."  
  
"Really, Mai?" Yugi perked up. "What is it?"  
  
"It's . . ." Mai paused, then screamed.  
  
"Mai? What's wrong?" Yugi gasped. "Mai?"  
  
The line went dead. 


	5. Scary Assailant

"Yugi? What's going on?" Tea asked.  
  
"We need to get to Mai's place right away," Yugi told her. "She might be hurt!"  
  
"We can take my limo," Seto said in his usual unemotional tone, heading for the door.  
****  
Before long, the six teens and Mokuba had arrived at Summit Hills.  
  
"There's a police car in front of Mai's house!" Tea exclaimed.  
  
"But I don't see an ambulance," Yugi remarked as they climbed out of Seto's limo. "Maybe she's okay!"  
  
Quickly they went up to the porch and Yugi knocked on the door. Soon it was opened by a police officer, who looked at them suspiciously. "Yes?"  
  
"Hi," Yugi greeted. "We're friends of Mai Valentine's. She was talking to me on the phone, but then she screamed and the line went dead!"  
  
The officer nodded slowly. "I see." He still seemed hesitant to let them in.  
  
"It's alright," Mai called, coming into the parlor. "Let them in, Officer."  
  
The policeman nodded and stepped aside, allowing the seven to enter.  
  
"Are you okay, Mai?" Yugi asked.  
  
Mai sighed. "I'm fine. Some horrible thing climbed in the window and threw its head at me!!"  
  
Everyone gasped, and Bakura looked sickened at the thought.  
  
"Mai, I don't get it," Joey said. "You mean somethin' like the Headless Horseman attacked you?!"  
  
Mai nodded shakily. "Exactly like that. Then it turned and jumped out the window!"  
  
"What about its, uh . . ." Joey paused, not exactly sure how to finish the sentence.  
  
"The head's gone too," Mai told him, "and it left blood all over my white carpet!" she complained.  
  
"Only there's nothing there now," the officer remarked. "When I got there, there was no evidence of any break-in, and certainly not a . . . tossed head."  
  
"I'm not crazy, Officer," Mai protested. "I know what I saw!"  
  
"Look, miss, the police force is swamped with all these alien sightings lately, and we don't have time to be chasing around after headless spooks," the officer replied coldly. "Good night." He turned and went out the door.  
  
"Nice guy," Joey muttered.  
  
"You believe me, don't you, Yugi?" Mai asked.  
  
Yugi paused. "Well, Mai, we've been dealing with lots of weird things lately . . . There's no telling what you've might've seen, but we all believe that you saw something, and we're going to find out what!"  
  
Mai smiled. "Thanks."  
  
"Now, show us where you saw this creepy creature," Joey said.  
  
Mai led them upstairs to a window looking at the nearby canyons. "It was right here," she told them. "It climbed in the window while I was on the phone with Yugi."  
  
Everyone looked out the window. "Freaky!" Joey declared. "There's no way to get down from here!"  
  
"Maybe Mokuba's aliens did it," Tristan grinned.  
  
Mai blinked. "Huh?"  
  
"There was another UFO sighting in the canyons near your home," Seto explained. "Mokuba heard about it on the news."  
  
"Well, now I know not to leave my windows open," Mai said dryly.  
  
"So what do we do now?" Tristan wondered.  
  
"Let's search the grounds," Yugi suggested, summoning his Yami. "And then we should go up to the canyons."  
  
"Fine with me, Yug," Joey said. "Just as long as we don't havta reenact the Legend of Sleepy Hollow!"  
****  
A thorough search of Mai's yard turned up nothing.  
  
"This is crazy!" Joey declared. "There's no sign that anyone's been here at all! Maybe you really did see the Headless Horseman, Mai!"  
  
Seto rolled his eyes. "I'm sure there's a logical explanation, Wheeler. Perhaps someone projected the image of the headless creature from somewhere in Mai's house."  
  
"There's no one in there but me!" Mai protested.  
  
"You think," Seto replied. "We should probably do a thorough search of your house to make certain there isn't anything lurking in there."  
  
"But why would someone do it?" Mai exclaimed. "What would be the point of a prank like that?!"  
  
"Nothing makes sense," Tea sighed as they headed back into Mai's house.  
  
"Alright, let's all split up into groups of two," Yugi directed, and he and Joey went to search the library. Then Mai went with Bakura to check upstairs while Tea and Tristan looked in the basement and Seto and Mokuba decided to investigate the attic.  
  
"Man, Yug, I don't see anything in here," Joey complained. "Just a bunch of books and stuff. Nothin' that you wouldn't ordinarily see in a library."  
  
"So it would appear," Yugi replied mysteriously. "But don't be fooled by appearances, Joey. Many things that you would not ordinarily see could be hidden right under our noses."  
  
"Eh, you mean like this, Yug?" Joey held up a bottle of red disappearing ink.  
  
Yugi brightened. "Yes, Joey! Exactly like that!" He took the bottle from Joey and examined it. "This is a perfect clue, Joey! Where did you find it?"  
  
"It was in this hollow globe here," Joey told the other boy, pointing to a world globe on the table.  
  
"Someone will probably be back to retrieve it," Yugi decided. "Let's see if we can give them a little surprise when they do."  
****  
"So, what exactly are we looking for?" Mai asked as she and Bakura wandered down the hall, checking in every room and closet.  
  
"Anything suspicious," Bakura replied.  
  
A loud crash came from a room across the hall.  
  
"Someone's in there!" Mai declared, looking angry, and headed for the room.  
  
"Mai, wait!" Bakura protested vainly. "It could be dangerous!"  
  
"Yeah—for them, kiddo! I have a black belt!" Mai retorted, throwing the door open. The room was completely empty. "Alright, come out with your hands up!" Mai yelled threateningly.  
  
"I just saw a shadow fade into the wall," Bakura exclaimed, his eyes wide. "Mai, I don't think this is safe!" He tried to get his Yami to talk to him through their mental connection. {Yami, do you know if something other-worldly is in here?} he asked frantically.  
  
There was silence for a long time, but then Yami Bakura finally responded grouchily, [You dolt. What do you think? If you feel uneasy, then you probably should be.]  
  
"We need to leave right now," Bakura said grimly.  
  
"Leave? To go where? This is my house, kiddo, and I don't intend to leave!" Mai said stubbornly, just as the wardrobe was hoisted into the air.  
  
"Mai, look out!" Bakura gasped, and the two teens ducked down just as the piece of furniture flew at them. It paused and hovered in midair, then headed toward the floor again.  
  
"Quick, we must leave!" Bakura cried, and this time Mai didn't protest. They ran out the door and slammed it shut behind them. {Yami, what *was* that?!} the frightened boy demanded.  
  
[I don't know,] the ancient thief responded, and a chill ran up Bakura's spine.  
  
"What *was* that?!" Mai exclaimed aloud. "And what was it doing in my house?!"  
  
"I think we should find Yugi right away and tell him," Bakura told her grimly.  
  
"Fine with me!" Mai declared as they ran down the hall.  
****  
"I don't like this basement," Tea remarked as she and Tristan poked around in one of the storage rooms. "It's creepy down here!"  
  
"Ah, come on, Tea," Tristan grinned as he looked behind an old dresser, "it's not that bad. Of course, if the boogie man was down here, it might be a different story!" He snickered.  
  
"That's not funny, Tristan!" Tea fumed, leaning on the wall. Suddenly she screamed as a panel swung open and she fell through, landing hard against a wall.  
  
"Hey, Tea, are you okay?" Tristan asked, coming to look in.  
  
Tea got up slowly, blinking. "I'm fine," she replied, confused. "But there's a staircase in here!"  
  
"Staircase?" Tristan repeated, feeling around for a lightswitch and finding none.  
  
"I wonder where it leads," Tea mused.  
  
"Let's find out," Tristan suggested, stepping in to the small room.  
  
The panel swung shut abruptly.  
  
"Whoa," Tristan exclaimed, "that was kinda weird."  
  
Tea pushed on the panel frantically. "We're locked in!" she gasped. "We'll have to climb the staircase to get out . . . in the dark!"  
  
"Just remember to hold onto the banister," Tristan warned as they started up the long flight of stairs. "Or you might trip and fall all the way back down."  
  
The stairs seemed to go on forever. Suddenly Tea bumped into something. "The stairs end here," she announced worriedly.  
  
"Well, what'd you bump into, Tea?" Tristan asked.  
  
Tea felt around. "I think . . . Yes, it's a panel!" she exclaimed in relief. "Help me open it, Tristan!"  
  
Working together, the two teens managed to move the board, which revealed an opening into another room. Tristan and Tea exchanged looks, then silently crept into the room, which also seemed to be dark, except for the light from the moon coming through a window on the opposite wall.  
  
"Where are we?" Tea wondered, backing up to survey the room better. Suddenly she screamed, banging into something.  
  
"Tea? What's going on?" Tristan demanded and whirled around, only to find Tea and Seto Kaiba exchanging looks.  
  
"I could ask you the same question," Seto said coldly.  
  
"Tristan and I just came up a secret staircase from the basement!" Tea told him.  
  
"I see." Seto nodded slowly.  
  
Just then Mokuba came running out from around a corner, his gray eyes wide. "Big brother, there's somethin' in here!" he declared.  
  
"What do you mean, Mokuba?" Seto asked.  
  
Before the little boy could answer, Tea screamed, horrified. "I think that's what he meant!" she exclaimed, pointing at a horrendous figure standing just in front of them wearing a dark black cloak and gloves and poised to attack. The four youth slowly backed away from the apparition as an unearthly laugh rippled through its body. "It doesn't have any head!" Tea shrieked. 


	6. Shaker

NOTES: I am still not trying to get Seto and Tea together romantically ^_~ And thanx to JP for his plot idea near the end of this chapter! ^^  
  
  
Without warning, the horrible creature dove at them and grabbed Tea.  
  
"Let me go!!" the poor girl screamed in terror, her blue eyes wide. The creature only laughed evilly.  
  
The three boys watched this in outrage and then launched their own attack at the monster, which first tripped Tristan and then threw Mokuba back forcefully into Seto's arms. Seto staggered back, momentarily caught off guard.  
  
"Are you alright, Mokuba?" he asked, concerned.  
  
"I'm fine, big brother," Mokuba replied, jumping back down to the floor to glare at the monster.  
  
"What do you want with me?!" Tea demanded, but it only tightened its grip on her and prepared to jump out the window.  
  
"Not so fast," Seto growled, digging his fingers into the thing's shoulder. It growled and let go of Tea, turning its full attention to Seto. Tea backed up and watched in horror as the two grappled violently on the floor. First Seto had the upper hand, but then the creature would scratch him viciously with its long fingernails and overpower him again.  
  
"Tristan, what do we do?" Tea gasped.  
  
Tristan watched the bloody scene grimly. "I don't think there's anything we can do, Tea," he told her.  
  
"My brother will win!" Mokuba said confidently, but his eyes showed how worried he was.  
  
Now the creature had Seto on the floor and was trying to strangle him, but at just the right moment, Seto shot out and kicked the phantom, throwing it across the room. It was quickly back on its feet again, however, and punched Seto hard in the chest. Seto gasped and sank to his knees, breathing heavily.  
  
"Big brother!" Mokuba gasped, his eyes wide.  
  
Seto's eyes narrowed at the creature and he stumbled back to his feet, launching a hard punch at the apparition that sent it flying out the window, where it vanished in midair. Seto watched it disappear and then leaned against the wall, trying to regain his strength.  
  
"Whoa, Kaiba, that was some fight!" Tristan exclaimed. "Are you okay?"  
  
Seto nodded. "I'm fine," he replied slowly, smiling as Mokuba rushed over to hug him.  
  
"Maybe we'd better go back downstairs and see what the others are doing," Tristan suggested.  
  
"Good idea," Tea agreed, and watched in concern as Seto struggled to stand up. "You *are* hurt, Kaiba!" she exclaimed.  
  
Seto shook his head. "No. No, Tea, I'm fine," he insisted, trying to ignore the burning pain in his chest. The apparition had hit him right where that strange mark was, and it really hurt, but he was not about to admit that to anyone.  
  
Tea and Mokuba stayed close to him as they went down the main stairs leading out of the attic. Tea looked at the blue-eyed boy worriedly. She never had liked him very much before, but he had changed a lot since the whole Duelist Kingdom experience, and he *had* just saved her from that . . . monstrosity. . . .  
  
"Thank you," she whispered softly. "Thank you for rescuing me."  
  
Seto didn't reply, but Tea had expected that.  
  
Yugi and Joey met them at the bottom. "Oh man, what happened to you guys?" Joey gasped.  
  
"Is everything alright?" Yugi asked.  
  
"We met the Headless Horseman dude up in the attic!" Tristan announced. "It tried to cart Tea off with it!"  
  
"No kidding?! Oh man . . ." Joey's eyes were wide. "How the heck did you get rid of it?!" He looked at Seto and did a doubletake. "Whoa, what happened to you, man?!"  
  
"Never mind," Seto replied coldly. "Did you find anything of value?"  
  
"Heck, yeah," Joey replied. "I found a bottle of red disappearing ink! That was probably the blood that was on Mai's carpet. That'd account for how it disappeared like it did!"  
  
Seto nodded slowly. "That's possible," he agreed.  
  
That's when Mai and Bakura came running down another staircase, looking completely spooked. "There's a phantom upstairs in the bedroom!" Bakura exclaimed.  
  
"It threw my wardrobe at us!" Mai added.  
  
Yugi looked grim. "That's terrible! What did you do?"  
  
"We locked it in, but it probably escaped by now," Mai replied with a sigh.  
  
Yugi turned to go up the stairs. "I'd better investigate," he decided.  
  
"Be careful, Yugi," Tea said worriedly.  
  
Yugi nodded solemnly and headed upstairs, with the others following closely.  
  
"Which room is it?" Yugi asked, glancing around the lengthy hallway.  
  
"This one," Mai told him, pointing at the bolted door on the left.  
  
Yugi turned to unlock the door. "Stand back," he warned, the third eye glowing on his forehead, "I can sense great danger inside."  
  
"Oh man, you don't havta tell us twice, Yug," Joey exclaimed, backing up. "I don't wanna be attacked by a vicious wardrobe like Kaiba was!"  
  
"It was a bookcase," Seto muttered.  
  
Yugi suddenly thrust the door open and glared into the room. "Spirits, reveal yourselves!" he ordered.  
  
An eerie cackling laugh began to echo throughout the room, and slowly twenty-five or more apparitions materialized.  
  
"Whoa!" Joey gasped, and Seto put his arms around Mokuba protectively.  
  
"Spirits, why have you intruded into Mai's house and terrorized her and all of us?" Yugi demanded.  
  
All of the phantoms only started laughing wickedly again.  
  
"You may refuse to give me a straight answer, but I do know that whatever your motives are, they are not righteous and good." Yugi looked at the wraiths stonily. "I will give you the chance to leave peacefully."  
  
None of the evil spirits moved from their places.  
  
Yugi's eyes narrowed. "Very well. Now I will be forced to make you depart." He raised his right hand in emphasis. "Be gone!"  
  
With cries of anger and fury, the wraiths vanished.  
  
"What were those things?!" Mai demanded.  
  
"Evil spirits,"Yugi told her grimly.  
  
"What would they want with me?!" Mai exclaimed.  
  
"I don't know," Yugi said, shaking his head.  
  
"Yugi, do you think it has something to do with our alien mystery?" Tea asked.  
  
"It's possible, I suppose," Yugi said slowly. "We'd better check the rest of the house to make certain there aren't any more wraiths hiding around."  
  
"Speakin' of aliens, are we still gonna go up to the canyons to look for clues?" Joey wondered as they finished up their search of Mai's house an hour later.  
  
Yugi nodded. "I think we should."  
  
"I'll come with you," Mai volunteered.  
  
"Well, that's cool," Joey grinned. "We can use all the help we can get!"  
  
As they went out the door and climbed into Seto's limo, Tristan, Tea, and Mokuba told Mai about their encounter with the headless phantom that had attacked them.  
  
"It just reached out and grabbed you?!" Mai exclaimed to Tea, her violet eyes wide.  
  
"It sure did," Tea nodded. "If Kaiba hadn't been able to overpower it, who knows where I might be now!" She shuddered.  
  
Mai turned to Seto, who had been characteristically silent for most of this time. "You were fighting with it? Are you alright?"  
  
Seto nodded. "I'm fine." He pulled the sleeve of his trenchcoat down to hide the scratch marks on his wrist.  
  
"Were you able to figure out what it was?" Mai asked.  
  
"Whatever it was, I doubt that it was mortal," Seto replied.  
  
"Yeah, and it sure wasn't any projected image," Tristan added. "It really clawed Kaiba up!"  
  
Seto looked irritated. "I told you, I'm fine," he said again, subconsciously rubbing at his aching chest.  
  
"One of these days, Kaiba, you might regret being so independent," Joey said, shaking his head. It was obvious to him and most everyone else that Seto was in pain.  
  
"I can take care of myself," Seto replied.  
  
"Whatever you say, man," Joey shrugged as they drove up into the canyons. "Whoa, man, have a look at that!" He pointed down at a steep, tree-filled incline just off the road, with a stream of water at the bottom far below. "I'd hate to fall down that thing!"  
  
"You and me both, kiddo," Mai said, peering out the window as well.  
  
"Where was the UFO sighted, Mokuba?" Seto asked.  
  
Mokuba paused, thinking. "I think the reporter said it was up near the top, Seto," he replied.  
  
"Keep driving," Seto directed his chauffeur.  
  
It wasn't hard to spot the area in question. As they neared the top, they found yellow tape around certain areas and two or three random officers apparently looking for anything they'd missed.  
  
"If they catch us here, they'll probably rout us out," Mai remarked.  
  
"So we'd better split up," Joey decided.  
  
"I agree," Yugi nodded, "but we must be very careful. They haven't blocked off certain areas up here for no reason."  
  
This time they split up into two groups of four each. Yugi went with Tristan, Mai, and Bakura, and Tea went with the Kaiba brothers and Joey, with the agreement that they'd meet up again in two hours.  
  
"So what are we looking for, Yugi?" Mai asked as they started walking through the clusters of trees.  
  
"Anything unusual," Yugi replied.  
  
"Oh, speaking of unusual . . . Bakura, have you heard anything about that piece of metal you found in your yard?" Tristan asked.  
  
Bakura shook his head, his long silver hair flying with the motion. "No, I haven't," he said. "I called the laboratory today and the scientist said they were still testing it."  
  
"What piece of metal?" Mai looked confused.  
  
"I found it in my yard yesterday morning," Bakura replied.  
  
"Yesterday morning!" Tristan shook his head. "Man, it's hard to believe all of this has happened just since then."  
  
Yugi nodded in agreement.  
****  
"Do you see anything, Joey?" Tea asked, looking up at Joey, who was perched in a tree.  
  
"Nothing," Joey replied in frustration.  
  
"You might want to consider coming down before you fall down," Seto said dryly.  
  
A small tremor shook the ground around them and Joey grabbed onto the branch in shock. "What the heck was that?!" he exclaimed.  
  
"Whatever it was, I don't think it was good!" Tea declared.  
  
A second tremor, harsher than the first, rumbled through and abruptly threw Joey out of the tree and to the ground. Then it sent Tea flying backward with a scream into Seto's arms, while Mokuba watched wide-eyed.  
  
"What's happening?!" Tea gasped.  
  
"I think it's an earthquake," Seto replied grimly. 


	7. Possible Lead

NOTES: It has come to my attention that I should reveal why I like to put Seto and Tea in cute scenes together if I'm not trying to pair them up ^_~ The truth is very simple: I want Tea to see what a great guy Kaiba really is! ^^ Also, tho, since I don't like Self-Insertion fics, I kinda imagine myself in Tea's place, ya know? Lucky gal!! ^^  
  
  
"An earthquake?!" Tea cried in horror, clinging tightly to Seto so she wouldn't fall over.  
  
"Oh man! This is the wrong time to be lookin' for flyin' saucers and aliens!" Joey gasped, hugging the tree he'd just fallen out of.  
  
Seto looked around grimly. "We should drop to the ground," he said, just as everything stopped shaking.  
  
"Is it over?" Tea asked slowly, opening her eyes.  
  
Seto nodded slowly. "It is."  
  
"But there could still be some aftershocks," Mokuba spoke up, looking worried.  
  
"Man, I hope Yug and the others are okay," Joey declared.  
  
Tea, suddenly realizing she was embracing Seto Kaiba, blushed and pulled away. "We'd better go find them!" she exclaimed, turning to disappear into the assembly of trees.  
  
"Hey, Tea, wait up!" Joey yelled, picking himself up off the ground and running after her, followed closely by the Kaiba brothers.  
****  
It so happened that Yugi and his group were near the top of another steep incline when the earthquake hit.  
  
"What's happening?!" Mai gasped as she pitched forward and had to rush to grab a nearby tree.  
  
"Oh man, this is all we need," Tristan muttered.  
  
Bakura let out a scream as he nearly fell down the embankment, but then Yami Bakura emerged from the Ring and grabbed him just in time, muttering something about dolts and foolish mortals.  
  
Yugi looked grim. "It's an earthquake," he informed the others.   
  
"Earthquake?!" Mai exclaimed.  
  
The ground abruptly stopped convulsing.  
  
Yugi looked around, concerned, making certain that everyone was alright and accounted for. "That was most unexpected," he said grimly. "We should try to find the others and make certain that they're safe."  
  
Before anyone could move, a police officer stepped out of the shadows and stared at them. "What are you kids doing here?!" he demanded.  
  
"We heard about the UFO that was sighted a few hours ago," Yugi told him.  
  
"Yes, that's right," Bakura agreed. "We're amateur detectives, and we just came here to look for clues."  
  
"Well, it's not safe," the officer grumped.  
  
"Man, you can say that again," Tristan declared. "What caused that earthquake?!"  
  
"That was no ordinary earthquake, son," the officer replied grimly. "That was a UFO taking flight."  
  
The four teens gasped, looking startled.  
  
"You've gotta be kidding," Tristan muttered.  
  
"Now I must ask you kids to clear out," the policeman said stiffly. "There's no telling what other shenanigans might be going on up here."  
  
Yugi nodded. "We will leave," he said calmly, "but first we must find our friends."  
  
The officer groaned. "There's more of you?" he sighed.  
  
"Four more," Mai spoke up.  
  
"Any idea what part of the canyon they might be going through?" the officer asked.  
  
"Oh dear. I'm all turned around," Bakura said, shaking his head.  
  
"We split up quite a ways back," Yugi said. "It was over by the limousine we came here in."  
  
"That thing belongs to one of you?" the officer said with a raised eyebrow.  
  
"Sure does," Tristan nodded. "Someone in the other group owns it."  
  
"Well, I've seen that limo, but there weren't any other kids around anywhere nearby," the officer told them.  
  
"Oh man . . . they could be anywhere," Tristan sighed, shaking his head.  
  
"They might even be hurt," Bakura worried.  
  
Yugi nodded grimly. "We can't waste any time." Before the officer could protest, the four split into two groups and prepared to disappear into the woods.  
  
"Wait!" the officer yelled.  
  
"The others are a group like ours," Tristan said, turning back.  
  
"With three boys and one girl," Bakura added.   
  
"But one of the boys is around ten instead of high school age like the rest," Yugi remarked.  
  
With that, Yugi and Tristan went one way and Bakura and Mai went another, leaving the policeman staring after them in frustration.  
****  
Meanwhile, the other four were wandering through an area cluttered with rocks and boulders.  
  
"Where are we?" Tea moaned. "It seems like we've been walking for hours!"  
  
Joey scratched his head, looking confused. "Eh, well, we're in the canyons," he said finally.  
  
"We know that much!" Mokuba grumbled.  
  
"Hey, wait a minute!" they heard a familiar voice exclaim from somewhere in the nearby trees. "I hear voices!"  
  
"Hey, wasn't that Bakura?" Tea said, looking around.  
  
"Yeah, Tea, I think you're right!" Joey declared. "Hey, Bakura!" he yelled. "Over here!"  
  
There was a brief silence, then, "Joey? Is that you?"  
  
"Yeah, pal, we're all here!" Joey called, venturing towards the trees.  
  
Before long, Bakura and Mai found their way through the trees and to the others in the clearing. "Thank goodness you're all alright," Bakura smiled. "We were quite worried!"  
  
"Yeah, that earthquake was somethin' else," Joey said, suddenly realizing something. "Hey . . ."  
  
"Where's Yugi and Tristan?!" Tea asked, voicing Joey's thoughts.  
  
"They should be here soon," Mai spoke up, glancing around.  
  
At that moment, a twig snapped at the other end of the clearing and Joey leaped a mile high. "Yaaaaaa!! It's the aliens!!!"  
  
"Actually, Joey, it's just us," Yugi smiled as he and Tristan stepped into the light of the moon.  
  
"A little jumpy today, aren't we?" Mai smirked.  
  
Joey blushed. "Eh, I knew it was Yug and Tristan the whole time. I, uh, just screamed 'cause I backed into a pinecone," he bluffed, holding one up that he'd just now found on the ground.  
  
"I'm sure we all believe that, Wheeler," Seto remarked.  
  
Yugi chuckled. "Well, now that we've all found each other again, we should leave now. I gave my word to that police officer that we'd leave once we found you."  
  
Joey sighed as they started walking. "Yeah, but we haven't found any clues yet!" he complained. At that minute, something caught his eye and he bent to pick it up. He stared at it briefly and then slipped it into his pocket with a grin. Spoke too soon, he thought to himself.  
  
"Did the officer say anything about what caused the earthquake?" Tea asked.  
  
"He said it was a UFO taking flight," Mai replied with a laugh as they climbed into the limo.  
  
"A UFO?" Tea, Mokuba, and Joey repeated.  
  
"You know," Yugi said thoughtfully, "I've been thinking—perhaps we should try learning more about UFOs. That knowledge might help us solve this case."  
  
"And I know just the place where we can learn!" Joey piped up smugly, holding up the thing he'd just found outside. "This is a flier for the 21st annual regional UFO Convention at the Domino City Convention Center tomorrow!"  
  
Everyone turned to stare at him. "Where on earth did you find that, Joey?" Bakura asked.  
  
"It was layin' on the ground outside," Joey told him. "Maybe someone was here who's going to the convention! Maybe even someone who might know how to set up a fake UFO!"  
  
"You mean maybe the UFO everyone's been seeing around town is really man-made?!" Mai exclaimed, raising an eyebrow. "Why would someone do that?!"  
  
"Hey, maybe it's all a big publicity stunt for that alien movie that's bein' filmed," Joey suggested.  
  
Yugi nodded. "It's possible," he admitted. "That flier is a great clue, Joey!"  
  
Joey grinned, giving the thumbs-up sign.  
  
"That's going right to his head," Mai sighed.  
  
"But how can we get into the convention?" Tea wondered. "We don't have tickets!"  
  
"I can arrange that," Seto spoke up in his usual, unemotional tone. "My company owns the convention center."  
  
"Eh, shoulda figured that." Joey rolled his eyes. "You probably own half the city."  
  
Seto ignored that. "It's going to be a formal convention," he informed them. "If you want to go, you'll have to wear tuxedos and evening gowns."  
  
"No problem there," Mai smiled.  
  
"Oh man, I havta wear some kinda monkey suit?!" Joey groaned. "No way! Count me out!" He crossed his arms stubbornly.  
  
"Hey, the convention thing was your idea, Joey," Tristan said.  
  
"That's right," Tea nodded. "So you, of all people, should come."  
  
"It's only for one evening, Joey," Yugi smiled.  
  
"Surely you can wear a tux for one evening," Mai said, tossing her hair.  
  
Joey's eyes narrowed. "Fine!" he burst out in frustration. "For one evening! But that's it!"  
****  
The next day at school, Seto approached Yugi between classes and handed him an envelope. "Here," he said abruptly. "These are the tickets to the convention tonight. There's one for you and one for each of your friends."  
  
Yugi blinked, a bit surprised at Seto's brusqueness. "Um, thanks, Kaiba," he said finally. "Will we see you there?"  
  
"I don't like conventions," Seto replied after a pause. "But you can expect that I will be there." He turned and walked away. He wanted to find out what had happened to him that night in the cornfield, and if someone at the convention might possibly know, then he was willing to try to find out, even if it meant going to the convention himself.  
****  
Grampa Muto smiled at Yugi as the boy came out of his room in a tuxedo that was a size or two too large on his small frame. "It's nice to see you and your friends off to have a relaxing evening for once," the elderly man commented.  
  
Yugi chuckled. "Well, Grampa, it's not exactly going to be all fun and games. We're trying to find some clues to this weird mystery."  
  
Grampa Muto nodded. "Yes, I know, but as long as you don't have to chase villains all around the convention center or be attacked by vicious aliens, it counts as a relaxing evening in my book!"  
  
Yugi had to laugh.  
  
At that moment, a knock came at the door and Joey and Tristan came in, both wearing tuxedos as well.  
  
"Hey, Yugi," Tristan grinned. "Are you ready to check this convention scene out?"  
  
Yugi smiled and nodded. "I sure am!" he declared.  
  
"Well, then, let's get it over with," Joey pleaded. "I don't wanna wear this thing any longer than I have to!" He tugged uncomfortably at the collar. "This bow tie is killin' me!"  
  
"Actually, I think the tuxedo fits you very well, Joseph," Grampa Muto smiled.  
  
"Yeah, well, it's not my kinda thing," Joey sighed. "Give me some jeans and a T-shirt any day!"  
  
After saying goodbye to Grampa Muto, the three boys left the game shop and headed over to Tea's house, where she and Bakura met them on the sidewalk outside. Bakura was wearing a tuxedo and looked a bit uncomfortable, though not as much so as Joey. Tea was wearing a pretty pink dress that sparkled in the moonlight.  
  
"Hey, you guys!" Tea smiled when she saw Yugi, Joey, and Tristan.  
  
"Hello," Bakura greeted them as well.  
  
The five teens continued walking down the street.  
  
"Tea, you look great tonight!" Yugi smiled.  
  
Tea smiled back. "You do too, Yugi," she said. She smirked at Joey. "Is wearing a tuxedo as bad as you thought it would be?" she asked.  
  
"It's worse," Joey grumbled. "Man, I can't believe I let you guys talk me into this!"  
  
"It's just for one evening," Tea said, shaking her head. She looked around. "Are Kaiba and Mai coming?"  
  
"They're going to meet us there," Tristan replied.  
  
Before long, they came in sight of the convention center. Yugi stared at it, then turned to his friends. "Well, here we go," he said. "Let's try to crack this case!"  
  
Everyone nodded resolutely and followed him up the walkway and into the building. 


	8. At the Convention

When Yugi and the others entered the convention center, they stood still in stunned surprise. UFO paraphernalia was everywhere, and most of the guests were swapping alien stories—some even dressing for the parts with masks or fake tentacles.  
  
"Oh man! These people are freaks!!" Joey gasped.  
  
"Pretty weird alright," Tristan agreed.  
  
"Hey!" a familiar voice called. "So here you are," Mai smirked, coming over to them. She was wearing a gorgeous, shimmering lavender evening gown. "Joey, you look charming," she laughed.  
  
Joey growled angrily.  
  
"You look great, Mai," Yugi smiled.  
  
"Yes, you look beautiful," Bakura said shyly.  
  
Mai looked surprised. She knew that Bakura was the bashful, quiet one of the group and that he often didn't say much. She smiled at both boys, but especially at Bakura. "So, what do we do now?" she asked. "Walk around and interrogate the guests?"  
  
"I guess so," Yugi said, looking around. "But we have to be careful what we say. We don't want to sound like we're accusing anyone of doing anything underhanded!"  
  
"That's right," Tea nodded.  
  
"We could get sued," Tristan added.  
  
"Well, let's all split up and see what we can find out," Yugi directed. "Let's meet back at the buffet table in an hour."  
  
"If Joey gets there first, all the food will be gone by the time the rest of us get back," Mai teased.  
  
Joey growled in frustration.  
  
As he wandered out among the guests, however, his anger was soon forgotten. "Hi!" an enthusiastic voice chirped.  
  
Joey looked up and his brown eyes went wide. Standing before him was a chipper redhead about his age with bright blue eyes and long eyelashes. "Whoa," he exclaimed without quite meaning to.  
  
The girl giggled. "I'm Cindy," she introduced. "Do you like UFOs and aliens too?"  
  
Joey blinked in surprise, but quickly recovered. He knew he wanted to impress this girl. "Eh, sure I do!" he bluffed.  
  
"Oh wow, that's just so cool!" Cindy bubbled. "I bet you know all about the Roswell incident, right?!"  
  
"Huh? Oh, yeah, sure!" Joey said. "I know all about . . . Roswell," he finished, after a brief struggle trying to remember the name. Cindy smiled at him. Maybe, he thought, this convention wouldn't be so bad after all.  
****  
"Wow . . . this place is so big," Yugi breathed. "I wonder where to begin . . ."  
  
**Try him,** Yami Yugi suggested, indicating a middle-aged man with fake alien tentacles on his head.  
  
Yugi blinked in surprise. ~Um, okay,~ he agreed, walking over. "Excuse me, sir," he began.  
  
The man immediately turned to face Yugi. "Well, hello, Earthling!" he greeted.  
  
Yugi backed up, his violet eyes wide. "Huh?"  
  
The man had to laugh. "Only joking, son. Where's you sense of humor?!"  
  
Yugi now chuckled as well, looking embarrassed.  
  
"Oliver Brown," the man introduced, holding out his hand.  
  
"Oh, hi! I'm Yugi Muto," the short boy said, shaking hands with Oliver.  
  
"Ah, yes." Oliver looked thoughtful. "And how long have you been into UFOs and aliens, Yugi?" he asked.  
  
"Um, ever since they started flying over the city," Yugi replied finally, hoping that he'd be able to get Oliver to start talking about that.  
  
"Ah. . . . Yes, strange things are happening in the skies these days," Oliver declared. "Extra-terrestrials are working overtime to communicate with us!"  
  
Yugi blinked. "Really? Why is that?"  
  
"They are trying to warn us of impending disaster!" Over said dramatically.  
  
"Gosh, what kind of impending disaster?" Yugi wanted to know.  
  
"Who knows!" Oliver threw his hands in the air. "That's what they're trying to tell us, but we're not listening!!"  
  
Yugi blinked. This man was certainly very interesting. He idly wondered if any of the others were having better luck.  
****  
While all this was happening, Tea was wandering around among the guests, wondering who she should be questioning first.  
  
"Hello there, miss," a boy's voice exclaimed suddenly.  
  
Tea turned to look and found one of the teenage caterers carrying a pitcher of ice water. "Um, hi," Tea said, surprised.  
  
"I'm Ed," the boy grinned. "Your friend over there tells me you solve mysteries."  
  
Tea swung around, looking upset, and caught sight of Joey talking to some girl. I should've known he'd spill the beans, she thought to herself. We're supposed to be keeping low profiles, but before long I bet everyone will know who we are!  
  
"So what's it like being a Nancy Drew?" Ed asked, seeming genuinely curious.  
  
"Um . . . it's never dull," Tea replied truthfully.  
  
"Are you here looking for clues?" Ed wanted to know. "Have you found any yet?"  
  
Tea's eyes widened. This Ed was starting to seriously annoy her.  
  
"Oh, wait, you can't reveal that kinda stuff, can ya?" Ed said hurriedly. "Stupid me!"  
  
Tea smiled tightly. "Well, it's been nice talking to you, Ed," she said, trying to end the conversation.  
  
She was relieved when Ed suddenly turned to go himself. "Yeah, sure has! Well, I'd better get back to what I was doing," he said sheepishly, "or my boss will throw a fit."  
  
"Of course," Tea nodded, starting to walk away.  
  
At that moment, without warning, she was suddenly drenched in water. "Huh?! What the . . ."  
  
"Oh wow! I'm so sorry!" Ed gasped. Tea looked up to see him holding an empty pitcher, looking horrified. "Can I get you something? A towel or . . .?"  
  
"That's okay, kiddo, we've got this under control," Mai said smoothly, coming out from a nearby crowd of people and whisking Tea away.  
  
"Wow, thanks, Mai," Tea said when they were safely far away from Ed and the crowds. "He was really getting on my nerves. I think he drenched me on purpose!"  
  
Mai nodded. "I think you're right, but why he would do that is beyond me."  
  
"Now what am I going to do?" Tea groaned, taking a look at herself. "I can't be at the convention like this!"  
  
Mai touched the hem of Tea's dress. "Well, this is a material that dries quickly," she informed the other girl. "If we can find a place for you to wait for twenty minutes or so while it does, you should be able to wear it again with no problem." She looked around, then started to walk out of the convention room and down the hallway, motioning for Tea to follow her. The blue-eyed girl did so, looking curious.  
  
"Where are we going, Mai?" she asked.  
  
"I saw some empty offices back here," Mai told her. "You could leave the dress hanging up under one of the fans and wait in the coat closet."  
  
Tea blinked, looking apprehensive. "I don't know, Mai. . . . What if someone comes into the office?"  
  
"I don't think anyone will, kiddo," Mai said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "I think the place is vacant, because the desk is bare and there are no personal touches anywhere. But anyway, I'm planning to stay in there while your dress dries, so if anyone comes in, I'll keep them away from the closet. Here we are," she said, gesturing around the bare office.  
  
Tea sighed. "I guess I don't have any other choice."  
  
When Tea was safely in the closet, Mai sat down at the desk and busied herself with applying a fresh coat of lipstick.  
  
"Hey, Mai, why were you looking in this office anyway?" Tea asked from in the cramped closet.  
  
Mai shrugged. "I came in the back entrance and I happened to notice the office door was open, so I casually glanced in."  
  
Tea shifted uncomfortably in the closet. There were no coats hanging on the hooks, but there were plenty of boxes stacked around, and between them and the coat hooks, there wasn't a lot of room left to stand. "Is my dress dry yet?" she called.  
  
Mai got up to feel it. "Not yet," she replied.  
  
Something crashed.  
  
"Mai? What was that?" Tea demanded.  
  
Mai looked around. "I'm not sure," she admitted finally, grabbing her handbag to use as defense if necessary.  
  
"Is something out there?" Tea worried.  
  
Mai didn't answer immediately. She was watching a shadow creep down the hall. "Tea, I'll be right back," she said, silently following after it.  
  
"Hey, wait!!" Tea screamed. "What about me?! Where are you going??! Don't leave me in here!!" With a sigh of desperation, she plopped down on one of the crates to wait.  
****  
Back at the convention, Tristan and Bakura found themselves talking to a woman who claimed to have seen the UFO flying over the canyons last night.  
  
"I was hiking with a friend when we saw it," she told them gravely. "It was saucer-shaped with green lights! My friend insisted it was a blimp, but I knew better! We are being invaded by aliens from another galaxy!" She gestured wildly.  
  
"Did you see where it landed?" Tristan asked.  
  
"I certainly did!" the woman nodded. "It was over at the top of one of those steep inclines the canyon is known for! It stayed there perfectly still for ages and I wanted to go have a closer look, but just then we were both routed away by the police!" She sighed.  
  
"Well, I'm sure that was for the best," Bakura said quietly. "You might have gotten into terrible trouble if you had tried to investigate!"  
  
"But it would have been more than worth it!" the woman grumbled stubbornly.  
  
"Well, what did you think about that?" Tristan asked Bakura after they said goodbye to the eccentric woman and were walking toward the buffet table.  
  
"I don't know," Bakura said slowly. "She's a bit . . . unusual. . . ."  
  
"No arguments there," Tristan laughed. "But at least we found a good clue. We'll have to go back there and check out all the steep inclines."  
  
"Hey, isn't that Joey?!" Bakura exclaimed.  
  
Tristan turned to look where Bakura was pointing. Joey was sitting in a table in the far corner chatting with a red-haired girl. "Trust Joey to find a pretty girl," Tristan sighed.  
****  
Seto Kaiba entered the convention center through a side entrance and looked around at the large crowds in distaste. He was wondering exactly how he was going to go about things when he became aware of a nervous man staring at him from across the large room. Seto's eyes narrowed and he walked over. The man cringed in fear.  
  
"Why are you staring at me?" Seto demanded. "And why are you acting so afraid of me? Do you have a good reason to be?!" He raised an eyebrow and clamped a hand down on the man's shoulder so he couldn't run away.  
  
The man squirmed frantically. "Um, no . . . no. . . . Of . . . of course not, Mr. Kaiba. . . ."  
  
"You know my name?" Seto looked at the little man suspiciously, noticing how he kept staring at the bandage on Seto's right hand. "Maybe you can tell me how I got this injury," he said. It wasn't a request.  
  
The man gulped. "I have no idea, Mr. Kaiba, honest!"  
  
"Oh, I believe you, alright," Seto said sarcastically. "Now why don't you just come clean and tell me what happened?"  
  
"I . . . I don't know . . . what you're talking about . . . Mr. Kaiba, sir," the man stuttered, his eyes wide. "I . . . I was just . . . surprised to . . . to see you . . . alive . . ."  
  
Any threads of Seto's patience that he had left were about ready to snap. "Why should that surprise you? Am I supposed to be dead? Did you try to kill me?!"  
  
The man finally broke free of Seto's grip and turned to run. "No, oh no, of course not!" he gasped, his eyes wild with fright now. "I . . . I've said too much already . . ." He turned, fleeing out the door and down the hall.  
  
"Wait! Come back here!!" Seto yelled, chasing after the strange man. He came to a stop in the now-empty hall and looked around, confused. Where could the guy have gotten to? He had only had a few seconds to have found a hiding place.  
  
Seto's gaze fell on an open door and he smirked. "So, trying to hide in there, huh? Well, you won't get away from me that easily." He entered the office and looked around. No one was in sight, but there was a closet where someone just might hide. Determinedly he walked up to the door and grabbed the knob, attempting to turn it.  
  
"Mai? Is that you?!" a female voice called.  
  
Seto let go of the knob, completely bewildered at hearing the familiar voice. "Tea? What are you doing in there?!"  
  
Tea blinked in surprise in the dark closet. Of all people to turn up . . . "Kaiba??!" She sighed. "I've been locked in this stupid closet for ages!! One of the caterers dumped water all over me and Mai brought me here to wait for my dress to dry, but then she ran off chasing something and left me stranded in here!!"  
  
Seto didn't answer. He had seen the dress hanging up and had gone over to see if it was dry yet.  
  
"Kaiba? Are you there?!" Tea yelled.  
  
"I'm still here," Seto replied.  
  
"Is my dress dry?" Tea demanded.  
  
"It is," Seto said, not really in a talkative mood. "Open the door a crack and I'll hand it to you."  
  
Tea opened the door just wide enough for her to get her hand through and took the dress from Seto. "What a crazy evening," she muttered, pulling the door shut tight again.  
  
She emerged from the closet a few minutes later and found Seto poking around in the office. "What are you doing?" she asked, giving him a weird look.  
  
"Tea, did you hear anyone come into the room just before I did?" Seto returned Tea's question with one of his own.  
  
"No, I didn't," Tea replied. "What's going on, Kaiba?!" she demanded.  
  
"Nothing you need to worry about," Seto told her. "Just go back to the convention or something."  
  
"Fine with me," Tea replied, leaving the room.  
  
Seto looked around the office suspiciously, not entirely aware that Tea had left. He still couldn't figure out where that man had disappeared to.  
  
Suddenly a blood-chilling scream came from outside the building. Seto looked up, startled. "What the . . ."  
  
He turned and ran out of the office and to the nearby exit. He glanced around at the dimly-lighted parking lot and then gasped. The strange man he had been looking for was laying on the ground, bleeding from a nasty looking head wound! 


	9. Chaos in the Canyons

Note: This is not yaoi!!! ^_~  
  
  
Seto gasped and knelt down next to the man, who was awake but in shock. The man stared at Seto, bleary-eyed. "You . . ." he rasped. "They were carrying you . . . they said . . . you were dead."  
  
Seto stared at him. "What?!"  
  
The man fell unconscious.  
  
Quickly Seto pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911.  
  
"Kaiba! What's wrong? What happened?!"  
  
Seto looked up at the sound of Tea's voice. She and most of the others were running out of the building, and Tea and Yugi looked especially horrified at the scene before them.  
  
"Who's this?" Yugi gasped.  
  
"I don't know," Seto said, shaking his head.  
  
"What was he saying?" Tea exclaimed.  
  
"Yeah, man, it sounded like he said something about you bein' dead," Joey exclaimed.  
  
"Well, I'm not dead," Seto grumbled.  
  
That's when the ambulance pulled up. The paramedics got out and began examining the man.  
  
"Is he hurt badly?" Tea asked worriedly.  
  
"He probably has a bad concussion," one of the paramedics replied. "We'd better get him to the hospital."  
  
"Do you have any idea what happened to him?" a second paramedic asked as they loaded the man onto a stretcher.  
  
"Someone attacked him," Seto said grimly. "I came out here when I heard him scream."  
  
The other paramedic sighed. "There's too many strange things going on around here to suit me," he remarked as he and the second paramedic climbed into the ambulance and drove off with sirens wailing.  
  
"What did he say, Kaiba?" Yugi asked.  
  
"Yeah, man, can't you tell us?" Joey sighed.  
  
Seto sighed too.  
  
Before he could answer, Bakura exclaimed, "Wait! Where's Mai?!"  
  
Everyone stopped and looked around. Where *was* Mai?!  
  
"Maybe she's still chasing that . . . whatever it was," Tea suggested. "We'd better go back inside and look for her!"  
****  
Mai, in the meantime, *had* still been chasing that shadow she'd seen—or trying to, anyway. She never had been able to catch it. In desperation she had finally given up and headed back to check on Tea. She was horrified to discover that it had been over an hour since she had left Tea in that closet.  
  
When Mai arrived back at the office, she stopped short in amazement. The closet was empty and Tea's dress was gone. Mai was certain that Tea wouldn't have dared to venture out of the closet to retrieve her dress herself, so what in the world had gone on?!  
  
"Mai!"  
  
Mai whirled around to see the others approaching the door. "Tea! What happened to you?!" Mai demanded.  
  
"I'll tell you later," Tea replied. "What happened to *you*?! I was stranded in that closet for ages!"  
  
"I'm sorry about that, kiddo. I was chasing a weird shadow I'd seen," Mai told her, "but it kept eluding me." She paused. "So, what do we do now?"  
  
The others exchanged their stories, except for Seto, who didn't particularly want to share his experience. Yugi concluded that Tristan and Bakura had had the most luck and the best clue.  
  
"Why don't we all go home and change out of these formal clothes and then meet again and go up to the canyons?" Yugi suggested, and the others agreed.  
****  
Forty-five minutes later, everyone met outside the Game Shop and Seto took them to the canyons in his limo. He wanted to find the answers to his own mystery, which was hopelessly tangled up with the mystery Yugi and his friends were trying to solve, as Joey had pointed out earlier.  
  
"Just how many steep inclines does this place have, anyway?!" Joey wondered now, staring out the limo's tinted window.  
  
"I'm not sure," Yugi admitted. "I think there's at least two or three different ones."  
  
They climbed out of the limo and stood in front of a map near the closed ranger station.  
  
"Here's one, and here's another one," Tristan said, pointing to different places on the map.  
  
"We'll need to split up," Yugi said, "but there's seven of us this time, so we can't divide up evenly," he realized.  
  
That's when Yami Yugi came out of the Puzzle, making the total eight. Yugi went with his Yami, Joey went with Tristan, Bakura and Mai went together, and that left Tea to go with Seto.  
  
"It seems like I'm always winding up with you," Tea remarked.  
  
Seto grunted in reply.  
****  
"So, where are we trying to go, kiddo?" Mai asked, picking her way over the fallen tree branches and rocks.  
  
"Well, according to that map we found, there should be one of those inclines we're looking for right around here somewhere," Bakura replied, looking around.  
  
A weird laugh sounded through the trees.  
  
"What was that?!" Mai gasped.  
  
"Whatever it is, I'm afraid it doesn't sound friendly," Bakura replied grimly.  
****  
"Man, I hope you know where we're goin'," Tristan said to Joey as they wandered through the dense woods.  
  
"Of course I do," Joey insisted. "Hey, what in the heck is this?!" he exclaimed, bending down to pick up a shiny piece of metal.  
  
"Weird," Tristan commented. "Maybe this is like the metal Bakura found in his yard," he mused.  
  
Joey slipped it into his pocket for safe-keeping.  
****  
"Boy, it seems like we've been walking for ages," Yugi remarked.  
  
Yami Yugi nodded, then paused. "I hear running water," he announced. "There must be a waterfall nearby."  
  
At that moment, a bright green light shone through the trees.  
  
Yugi shielded himself from the glow. "Yami, what's happening?!" he gasped.  
  
"I'm not sure," Yami Yugi responded, putting his hands on Yugi's shoulders protectively. "Stay close, Yugi. This could be dangerous."  
****  
"Kaiba, is something following us?" Tea asked, looking nervous.  
  
Seto glanced around, his eyes narrowing. "I think so," he said grimly. "Stay close to me."  
  
He didn't have to tell her twice. Tea shuddered fearfully, not wanting to stray even a step behind Seto.  
  
Suddenly a little green alien-like creature leaped out at them, chattering in an odd language and raising a laser gun at them.  
  
Tea gasped. "What do we do now?" she cried.  
  
Seto watched the alien stonily and suddenly kicked out at it, knocking the gun out of its hand. "What do you want?" he demanded.  
  
The creature, unabashed, stepped up and leaped on Seto's chest, bringing the boy to the ground.  
  
"Kaiba, I think it wants you!" Tea shrieked.  
****  
"That weird laughter is getting louder," Mai exclaimed. By now she and Bakura had wandered through more trees and brush and had wound up near one of the inclines.  
  
Bakura looked around worriedly. "Perhaps if we ignore it, it will go away," he hoped.  
  
Suddenly the headless phantom materialized in front of them, cackling evilly. It picked up a huge rock from the ground and threw it at them, trying to make them both fall down the slope.  
  
Mai gasped, ducking down just in time and pulling Bakura with her.  
  
"Oh my!" Bakura burst out, horrified.  
  
"Prepare to meet your doom," the phantom hissed.  
  
At that moment, the Millennium Ring glowed brightly and Yami Bakura stepped out, glaring at the monstrosity. "Go!" the thief growled at Bakura and Mai. "Get out of here, you fools! I will handle this myself!" He didn't care what happened to the girl one way or the other, but he didn't want anything to happen to Bakura.  
  
Bakura's eyes went wide as he and Mai stood up. "But Yami . . ."  
  
"Just get yourself out of here, you dolt!!" Yami Bakura interrupted harshly, pushing him forward.  
  
"Hey, if he wants to handle this himself, then let's let him!" Mai exclaimed, turning to go and pulling on Bakura's arm to get him to follow her. Reluctantly the boy did, glancing back at his Yami worriedly.  
  
"Go!! GO!!" Yami Bakura screamed, pushing Bakura again just as the phantom threw another miniature boulder, which narrowly missed hitting the frightened boy. Bakura quickly got his bearings and he and Mai fled into the nearby trees.  
****  
Tea screamed as a second alien dropped out of a tree and landed on her back. "Get off of me!!" she yelled.  
  
Seto, meanwhile, wrestled with the alien on his chest, trying to pry it off as its sharp claws dug painfully into his flesh. Finally he loosened the creature's viselike grip and threw it to the ground. He looked up and saw Tea fighting with the other alien. His eyes narrowed and he grabbed the creature from behind, pulling at it. "Let her go!" he ordered.  
  
The alien turned around and tried to claw at Seto, who backed away just in time.  
  
"Kaiba! What are we going to do?" Tea gasped.  
  
"We're going to win this," Seto grumbled, shoving a third alien aside.  
  
A fourth alien grabbed Seto's legs and pulled, bringing him to the ground. It was about to strike him with a rock when Tea seized it angrily. "Get away from him!!" she screamed, and the creature hissed viciously. Tea had a sinking feeling that this experience was far from over.  
****  
Meanwhile, Yami Bakura and the headless phantom grappled on the ground, exchanging punches and throwing each other back and forth, each trying to send their opponent over the edge of the incline. Yami Bakura stood up, placing his foot on the phantom's back. He had the upper hand now, and he knew just what would finish this once and for all.  
  
With a sneer, the tomb raider pulled out his card deck. This should be a snap, he thought to himself. "You pathetic creature. Now you will suffer my wrath!" he yelled. "Man-Eater Bug! Attack!"  
  
The phantom didn't seem fazed. With an evil laugh from deep in its headless body, it whipped out a card of its own. "Brain-control!"  
  
Yami Bakura's Man-Eater Bug froze and turned to face the tomb raider, raising its pincers threateningly.  
  
"What! This is impossible!" Yami Bakura cried, caught completely off guard. "You can't possibly possess these kind of powers!!"  
  
The phantom ignored that. "Attack the fool!" it ordered.  
  
"No! Wait!!" Yami Bakura protested in vain as the huge bug lunged at him, grabbing him in its huge claws. "Don't attack me, you fool!! Attack him!!"  
  
The bug paid him no heed, wounding him deeply in the shoulder. Yami Bakura screamed in pain, trying to fight the bug, but knowing how futile it was. With a evil hiss, the bug threw the thief over the incline.  
****  
Bakura, still fleeing, suddenly stopped and gasped, hearing a horrible, heart-wrenching scream. "Yami!" he cried, turning and running back the way they'd come, Mai hot on his heels. "I knew we shouldn't have left him!"  
  
When Bakura emerged from the trees several minutes later, he looked around frantically. The phantom was gone, but there were Duel Monsters cards scattered amongst the autumn leaves. "Yami! Where are you?!" Bakura called, looking around. He happened to glance over the edge of the slope and gasped. "No . . . no . . . it can't be . . ."  
  
Mai finally caught up to the silver-haired boy. "Bakura, what . . ." She trailed off, seeing the innocent boy's Yami laying down in the water far below, lifeless and still, his blood turning the river a deep red.  
  
Bakura was already running down the steep incline, tears falling from his soft brown eyes. He collapsed on his knees in the shallow—yet still deadly—water, trying desperately to pull his Yami's body into his arms. "Yami, speak to me! Please . . . say something!" the boy sobbed, brushing the tomb robber's damp bangs away from his closed eyes.  
  
Quickly Bakura laid his Yami on the ground and pushed on his chest, trying to get him to cough up the water he must have swallowed. "Oh, please, Yami . . . please!" Bakura wailed.  
  
At first there was no response, but then the thief choked and water poured from his mouth. Bakura drew back, breathing a sigh of relief. "Yami?" he whispered.  
  
Yami Bakura's eyes opened halfway and he seemed to look right through Bakura as if he wasn't there. "I . . . I . . . couldn't stop it . . ."  
  
"What, Yami?" Bakura gasped, again taking the thief's body into his arms. "What couldn't you stop?"  
  
Yami Bakura shuddered. "The Man-Eater Bug. . . . The . . . the . . . headless phantom . . . great and terrible powers. . . . Be . . . be careful . . . Bakura. . . ." His eyes closed again.  
  
Bakura was aghast. "No! No, you can't die, Yami!! Please . . ." he begged in vain. His Yami had once told him that he couldn't die, but . . . what if he was wrong? 


	10. Strange Conversation

Note: This still isn't yaoi, and it never will be! ^_~  
  
  
"Bakura! Bakura!"  
  
Bakura looked up, tears spilling from his eyes. Mai was picking her way down the incline, looking worried. "What's wrong, kiddo?" she called. "Is your Yami . . ."  
  
"Call 911!" Bakura screamed, not even stopping to wonder how the modern-day doctors would help the 5,000-year-old tomb robber.  
  
Mai pointed this out to him, however, and Bakura had to admit that she was probably right. "But then . . . what can I do?!" the distraught boy wailed.  
  
Mai paused. Aside from Yugi, she had never seen anyone with the immense kindness and compassion that Bakura had. The others had told her horror stories about Bakura's Yami—how he was always nasty and despicable, not stopping at anything to get what he wanted. Bakura often said that he wished there was some way to be rid of his Yami, but now that there really might be—and for good—Bakura couldn't bear to think that his Yami might not survive.  
  
"Listen, kiddo," Mai said finally, "you're not the only one with a Yami. You stay here and I'll go find Yugi. Maybe he'll know what you can do."  
  
Bakura looked worried. "But you might get hurt too," he objected. "You shouldn't wander around up here all by yourself!"  
  
Mai shrugged. "I'll be fine," she assured him. "I'll be back with Yugi before you know it!"  
  
With that she was gone, leaving Bakura with his Yami's limp body.  
****  
Yugi braced himself for the next disaster. The green light was almost upon them when Yami Yugi took Yugi and dove into the bushes.  
  
"Yami, what are you doing?" Yugi asked.  
  
"We're going to try to find the source of the light," Yami Yugi replied, beginning to follow the glow as it moved back the other way, then diminished and vanished entirely. "Hmmm . . . this is strange," Yami Yugi remarked, narrowing his eyes.  
  
"Yami, look up there!" Yugi exclaimed, pointing at a strange saucer hovering in the sky.  
  
"This looks bad," Yami Yugi said grimly.  
  
Suddenly a twig snapped behind them and the two whirled around.  
  
"Yugi!" a familiar voice called.  
  
"Mai?" Yugi blinked in surprise as the girl emerged from the shadows.  
  
"What's wrong, Mai?" Yami Yugi asked.  
  
"Bakura's Yami got hurt," Mai told them, "and the poor kid's worried about him."  
  
"Yami Bakura has been injured?" Yami Yugi looked grim. "There's more going on here than meets the eye."  
  
"Yami, that saucer's disappeared!" Yugi gasped.  
  
Yami Yugi and Mai both looked up at the sky. "You're right, Yugi. It has," Yami Yugi said. "We will have to keep a close watch out for it. But for now . . ." He turned to Mai. "Take us to Bakura," he requested.  
****  
Seto and Tea, meanwhile, were being bombarded with the aliens from all directions.  
  
"Kaiba! What are we going to do?! We can't fight them off forever!" Tea cried, dodging another green creature.  
  
Seto punched the umpteenth alien and then watched, startled, as it hit a tree and broke into pieces. "It's not alive," he realized. "They're robots!"  
  
"Robots?!" Tea repeated incredulously, throwing her attacker back against a boulder. Limbs flew everywhere. "But . . . why? What does it mean?"  
  
"It means that maybe there aren't real flying saucers in Domino City," Seto replied. "Maybe they're man-made."  
****  
Bakura, meanwhile, was examining his Yami's battle wounds. He gasped when he saw the deep gash in the thief's shoulder. What kind of creature had done that?! Quickly he removed his Yami's shirt—which had almost been completely shredded anyway—and pulled out a white handkerchief, which he pressed against the abrasion in an attempt to stop the bleeding. "Please be alright, Yami," the kind-hearted boy whispered.  
  
"Bakura! Hey, Bakura!"  
  
Bakura looked up to see Joey and Tristan running towards him. They stopped short, shocked. "Whoa, man, what happened?" Joey asked, concerned.  
  
"I don't know," Bakura replied, shaking his head fearfully. "He . . . he was fighting with that headless phantom and he told me to take Mai and run for it. . . . Then I heard him scream, and . . . and . . ." He trailed off, looking down. The bleeding had stopped, he noted with relief, and he gently tied the handkerchief around the wound as a makeshift bandage.  
  
"The headless phantom did that to him?!" Joey exclaimed, his eyes wide.  
  
"I . . . I suppose he must have," Bakura said softly.  
  
That was when Mai finally led Yugi and his Yami to the spot.  
  
"We're back," Mai told him. "How're you holding up, kiddo?"  
  
Bakura shrugged helplessly.  
  
"Bakura . . ." Yugi wasn't exactly sure what to say. "I'm . . . I'm sorry," he said softly. Bakura nodded in acknowledgment, trying to hold back another round of tears. Mai laid a hand on his shoulder comfortingly.  
  
Yami Yugi knelt down next to the tomb raider, looking grim. He lifted the handkerchief bandage and examined the deep slash in the thief's shoulder, then looked up. "Bakura, did your Yami give any indication of what happened to him?" he asked.  
  
Bakura paused. "Well . . . he . . . he did speak to me briefly," he said slowly. "He said something about the Man-Eater Bug and the headless phantom. . . . Something about great and terrible power. . . . He . . . he told me to be careful," the boy finished in a near-whisper, a tear falling from his eye.  
  
"The Man-Eater Bug?!" Yugi exclaimed.  
  
"I don't get it," Tristan said. "What do Duel Monsters have to do with the headless phantom?!"  
  
Yami Yugi shook his head. "I don't like this at all."  
  
"Yami, do you know what's happening?" Yugi asked.  
  
Yami Yugi paused. "I have a feeling that our headless phantom just might be more powerful than we've been thinking it is."  
  
"What do you mean?" Bakura asked, holding his Yami's body protectively.  
  
Yami Yugi gently pried a card out of the thief's hand. Bakura blinked. He hadn't even noticed his Yami had been clutching anything. "Have a look at this," Yami Yugi said, holding it up.  
  
"Whoa . . . it's the Man-Eater Bug card," Tristan exclaimed.  
  
Yami Yugi nodded. "I have the feeling that Bakura's Yami tried to use his card tricks on the phantom, but that instead, it backfired on him."  
  
"But . . . how?" Yugi's violet eyes were wide as saucers. "Yami, isn't that impossible, unless . . ."  
  
"Unless the phantom has powers on the same level," Yami Yugi finished.  
  
There was silence for a long time after this statement. Finally Bakura spoke.  
  
"What about my Yami?" he asked softly. "Is . . . is he . . ."  
  
Yami Yugi smiled at Bakura comfortingly. "I'm certain he will recover." Though it might take a while, the ancient pharaoh thought to himself grimly. "Here—let me help you carry him," he offered kindly, gently taking Yami Bakura into his arms.  
  
Bakura smiled back gratefully. "Thank you. I hope he will be alright. . . ."  
  
"Well, we should get him back to the limo right away and then try to find the others," Yami Yugi remarked.  
****  
Tea surveyed the broken alien robots. "Is that all of them?" I hope, I hope, she added to herself.  
  
Seto didn't answer. Instead he reached to pick up a random robotic limb to use as evidence. To his complete surprise and consternation, the arm jumped up, hovered in midair, and slapped him across the face. "Ow," he grumbled, snatching the arm before it could do it again.  
  
Tea gasped, her eyes wide. "How did it do that?!" she cried.  
  
Seto shook his head. "I don't know." He stood up, rubbing at his cheek. "Let's find the others," he said coldly.  
  
They hadn't gone far when they heard voices. "He's alive? Ridiculous!" a scratchy voice declared.  
  
Seto froze, motioning for Tea to stop as well. He parted the bushes carefully and stared at the silhouettes of two men who were talking in a clearing.  
  
"Not ridiculous, you blockhead," the second one scolded. "He wasn't dead in the first place! We only said that to scare that nosy fool!"  
  
Tea's eyes widened. "Who are they talking about, Kaiba?!"  
  
Seto sent her a warning with his eyes, telling her to be quiet.  
  
"Well, what do we do now?" the first voice asked.  
  
"Come on. This is a bad place to talk. I sense other entities nearby." With that, the two men disappeared into thin air.  
  
Tea blinked in surprise. "Well, that was weird. Where did they go, and who were they talking about?!" she demanded again.  
  
"I have a pretty good idea," Seto replied, but didn't elaborate. He looked like he was fuming.  
  
Tea gasped. "You! They were talking about you, weren't they?!"  
  
Seto didn't answer.  
  
"Tea! Kaiba! Hey, where are you guys?!" a familiar voice yelled.  
  
"Tristan!" Tea called in relief. "We're over here!"  
  
Before long the other members of the group emerged from the trees.  
  
"Are you two both okay?" Yugi asked worriedly.  
  
"Yeah, the last thing we need is more injured people," Joey added with a sigh.  
  
"We're both fine," Seto said in a detached tone.  
  
"What do you mean by 'more injured people'?!" Tea exclaimed. "Who's hurt?!"  
  
Yami Yugi stepped out of the shadows, carrying Bakura's lifeless Yami.  
  
"Yami Bakura?!" Tea gasped.  
  
"That's right," Joey nodded. "Bakura says the guy was fighting with the headless phantom."  
  
Tea shuddered. "That horrible thing again?! What could it want with us?!"  
  
"That's a good question," Yugi sighed.  
  
Yami Yugi nodded grimly. "And we had better find the answer fast. Because while Yami Bakura will likely survive this attack, one of you most likely would not. And I don't want anyone to lose their life on this case."  
  
They started walking again and within a few minutes they finally found the limo and climbed in. As they drove back to the city, Bakura gently laid his Yami across his lap, dabbing at his forehead with a damp cloth. "Poor Yami," the boy whispered softly.  
  
Mai laid a hand on Bakura's shoulder gently. "You're something else, kiddo," she said softly.  
  
Bakura shook his head, trying not to cry again. "I . . . I just don't want him to die," he whispered. "I know he's always cruel and mean, but . . ." He trailed off.  
  
Suddenly the limo gave a violent lurch and then swerved, sending everyone crashing into those sitting next to them! 


	11. Deadly Poison

NOTE: This is NOT yaoi ^_~  
  
  
When the limo finally stopped moving, everyone turned to look at everyone else to make certain that they were all alright.  
  
"Whoa, what the heck just happened?!" Joey exclaimed.  
  
"I . . . I don't know," Bakura replied, blinking. He had grabbed his unconscious Yami protectively when the limo had pitched forward abruptly, and now he relaxed, again laying the ancient thief across his lap.  
  
Seto looked angry. "What's going on up there?!" he demanded.  
  
"I'm sorry, sir," the chauffeur said apologetically. "I . . . I was just a bit dizzy, and then I had to suddenly swerve the limo so we wouldn't hit that man riding by on his horse."  
  
The teens all looked at each other.  
  
"There wasn't any horseback rider out there," Tea declared, and the others nodded in agreement. "We're in the city!"  
  
"What do you mean you were dizzy?" Seto now asked of the chauffeur.  
  
"Oh, it was just a little dizziness, sir," the man tried to assure his boss. "I'm sure I'll be fine now." He reached for the driver's wheel.  
  
"No!" Seto said harshly. "Don't try to drive. You might get us all killed!" He paused, crossing his arms. "Tell me what happened while we were gone."  
  
"Nothing much, sir," the chauffeur replied. "I just listened to the radio and ate a sandwich."  
  
"A sandwich?" Seto raised an eyebrow. "Where was it?"  
  
"Oh, just right on the seat next to me, in a brown bag," the chauffeur said. "Why, sir? Do you think someone might've slipped something into it?"  
  
"Actually, yes I do," Seto replied.  
  
"But who would do such an awful thing?!" Tea cried.  
  
"Unfortunately, there are many who would," Seto said angrily.  
  
"Any of our enemies would be capable of doing so," Yami Yugi added grimly.  
  
"Did you notice anyone walking near the limo?" Seto asked.  
  
The chauffeur paused, thinking. "No, I saw no one," he said finally.  
  
Seto's eyes narrowed in frustration. "Did you eat the whole sandwich?"  
  
"No, sir, only half," the chauffeur replied.  
  
"Then we should have the other half analyzed," Seto decided. "And you should be checked out by a doctor."  
  
"Oh, sir, I'm sure I'm fine," the chauffeur said again.  
  
"All the same, I want you examined before you try driving this limousine again," Seto said sternly.  
  
The chauffeur sighed. "Yes, sir," he agreed.  
  
Yami Yugi looked around. "I believe there's a police station right in this area," he stated.  
  
Bakura nodded. "There is," he confirmed. "It's right around that corner over there."  
  
"Then let's go there and see what we can find out!" Joey declared, slamming his fist into his palm.  
  
Almost everyone got out of the limo to make their way to the station except Bakura, who wanted to stay with his sick Yami, and Mai, who decided to stay with Bakura. Yami Yugi went back in the Millennium Puzzle.  
  
As the others walked up to the building, Joey was shocked to see a familiar redhaired girl coming out through the doors. "Cindy?! What're you doin' here?!"  
  
Cindy also looked surprised. "Joey!" She smiled. "I might ask you the same question." She paused. "As for what I'm doing here, I'm way into paranormal activity, as you well know. I was just filing a report on a UFO I saw over my house."  
  
"Hey, Joey, wanna introduce us to your girlfriend?" Tristan grinned.  
  
"This is Cindy," Joey said enthusiastically. "We met at the convention tonight."  
  
"That's right," Cindy smiled. She sighed. "Well, I'd better be going. I'll see you tomorrow, right, Joey?"  
  
"Sure thing!" Joey smiled and waved as Cindy hurried off.  
  
"Ooh, Joey, do you have a date with her?!" Tristan asked incredulously as they entered the police station.  
  
"When you've only known her for a few hours?!" Tea added in disbelief.  
  
Joey shrugged. "Hey, what can I say? Great girl!"  
  
The desk sergeant looked up, hearing them walk in. "Not more UFO nuts," he sighed.  
  
"Well, not exactly," Yugi said slowly, "but strange things happened to us while we were investigating one of the UFO sightings."  
  
"What happened this time?" the desk sergeant asked in resignation.  
  
Over the course of the next hour, Yugi, Joey, Tristan, and Tea took turns explaining what they'd seen and heard—leaving out any mention of the encounter with the headless phantom and what had happened to Yami Bakura—while Seto took the chauffeur to be examined and the sandwich to be analyzed in the police station's laboratory.  
  
"Your chauffeur should be alright in a bit," the officer told Seto a short while later. "Apparently someone slipped a sleeping pill into his sandwich."  
  
Seto's eyes narrowed in anger. "That's exactly what I was afraid of," he muttered.  
  
"What I'd like to know is, How in the world did they do it?" the policeman sighed, shaking his head.  
  
"If we knew that, we might have half the mystery solved," was Seto's response as he turned away.  
****  
Bakura, meanwhile, was watching his Yami worriedly. The ancient thief moaned in agony and Bakura frantically tried to determine what was wrong.  
  
"I'm afraid he's very ill," the poor boy declared, tears in his eyes. He turned to Mai pleadingly. "Please, can you find Yugi?" he asked.  
  
"Sure, kiddo," Mai said gently, getting out of the limo.  
  
When Mai came into the police station, she found most of the other teens talking to the desk sergeant. "Yugi?" she called quietly.  
  
Yugi turned around and saw instantly what was wrong by the look in Mai's eyes. "Can you excuse me?" he said softly. "Joey, Tristan, and Tea will tell you the rest."  
  
"Yeah, sure. Go on," the desk sergeant replied, waving him away. Joey, Tristan, and Tea exchanged worried looks.  
  
"How bad is he?" he asked when the two of them got outside.  
  
"Well, I'm not an expert on ancient Egyptian spirits, but I think he's probably pretty bad off," Mai said quietly.  
  
Yugi nodded solemnly as he opened the door of the limo and stepped inside. "Bakura?"  
  
The worried boy looked up. "Please, Yugi . . . please help him," he cried.  
  
Yugi nodded and his Yami came out of the Millennium Puzzle, kneeling down next to Yami Bakura. The tomb robber was obviously unconscious, but was moaning in pain.  
  
"I've never seen him like this," Bakura whispered.  
  
Yami Yugi gently lifted up the makeshift bandage and again examined the wound in the tomb raider's shoulder. The pharaoh's eyes narrowed in concern.  
  
"What is it, Yami?" Yugi asked.  
  
"It's bad, isn't it?" Bakura said fearfully.  
  
Yami Yugi nodded. "I'm afraid he's been poisoned," he said honestly. "The headless phantom must have used evil magic from the Shadow Realm to inject poison into the wound after the Man-Eater Bug attacked."  
  
Bakura's eyes went wide. "Oh no . . . oh no . . ." He looked down at his Yami's agonized body.  
  
"Why couldn't you tell that he'd been poisoned before?" Mai asked curiously.  
  
Yami Yugi shook his head. "This is a very rare poison. I haven't seen the likes of it in centuries. It doesn't make itself known until several hours after the injection."  
  
"Yami, isn't there something you can do for him?" Yugi asked, seeing how stricken Bakura was.  
  
Yami Yugi looked solemn. "There is an ancient spell I could perform, but I don't know if it will work."  
  
"Please try," Bakura begged, his brown eyes wide and frightened.  
  
Yami Yugi nodded and placed his hands just above the thief's wound. He chanted some words in Egyptian and then paused for what seemed like ages. Finally he opened his eyes and backed away.  
  
"What is that routine supposed to do?" Mai asked with a blink.  
  
"It's supposed to remove harmful substances such as poisons," Yami Yugi replied slowly, "but in Yami Bakura's case, I'm afraid the poison might already have too great a hold over him to be banished."  
  
Yami Bakura let out a heart-wrenching cry of pain and then fell silent.  
  
Tears spilled down Bakura's face as he gently brushed the long bangs away from his Yami's closed eyes. "Please, Yami . . . please wake up. . . . Please be alright . . ." The boy trailed off, looking lost.  
  
"What can we do now?" Mai wondered.  
  
Yami Yugi sighed. "There's not much we can do now, Mai," he said softly, and Yugi looked at the floor of the limo sadly.  
  
"Can he . . . can he . . . die?" Bakura asked quietly.  
  
"Bakura, I will be honest with you." Yami Yugi laid a hand on the boy's shoulder. "This poison is very deadly, and coming from the Shadow Realm, it could even destroy a non-mortal such as your Yami."  
  
Bakura looked down. Yugi could tell the other boy was horrified. "Yugi . . . he . . . he rescued us from the headless phantom. . . . I . . . I don't know why he did it, but he did. . . ." His shoulders shook as he sobbed into his hands. "I . . . I can't bear to think of him dying . . . not now . . . not ever. . . . He's usually always so dreadful and awful, but . . . but still . . ."   
  
Yugi gently laid a hand on Bakura's shoulder. "I know," he said softly. "You don't have to explain anything to me. I understand."  
  
"Is there anything else you can do?" Mai asked Yami Yugi in an undertone.  
  
Yami Yugi shook his head solemnly. "I'm afraid not."  
  
Yami Bakura groaned and rolled over, falling off the seat of the car and crashing to the floor.  
  
"Yami!" Bakura exclaimed and knelt down next to the tomb raider, who was moaning in pain. His shoulder wound was bleeding again and suddenly he went into a convulsion, jerking uncontrollably. When this horror finally ceased, Yami Bakura lay on the limo's floor, gasping for breath, his eyes open but unseeing. Bakura's eyes spilled over with tears again as he cradled the ancient thief in his lap and pleaded, "Stay with me, Yami! Please . . .!"  
  
Yami Bakura gave no indication that he heard Bakura at all, or that he even knew the boy was there. He drew a ragged breath and shuddered.  
  
Mai turned to Yami Yugi, her eyes wide. "Is he . . .?"  
  
Yami Yugi nodded gravely. "He's dying." 


	12. Brighter News

NOTE: Still isn't yaoi ^_~  
  
  
Yugi and Mai gasped.  
  
Bakura shook his head, his silver hair flying with the motion. "No . . . no . . . he can't!" he cried. "Yami, do you hear me? You can't die!!" A tear slipped down Bakura's cheek and splashed across the tomb robber's vacant eyes. For one brief moment, Yami Bakura's vision cleared and his expression showed recognition as he looked up at Bakura. Then with a final groan, his eyes closed as if they were very heavy and his head fell back, his long, silver locks brushing against Bakura's arm. Bakura sat completely still, disbelief written in his eyes and on his face. "No . . . no . . . oh Yami . . . no . . ." He held the thief's body close while Yugi and the others stood around him, unsure of what to say or do. "I . . . I have to do something," Bakura said quietly, tears streaming down his face. "Maybe . . . maybe it's not too late. . . ." Without another word, he took his Yami's hand in his and closed his eyes, concentrating very hard.  
  
"What's he doing?" Mai asked, confused.  
  
"I think I know," Yami Yugi said slowly. "He's trying to transfer some of his own strength to his Yami to make him strong enough to fight the poison."  
  
Yugi gasped. "But Bakura doesn't know how to do that!" he exclaimed.  
  
Yami Yugi smiled mysteriously. "Perhaps not consciously, but when one is acting out of a love and concern for someone else, they can often do the impossible."  
  
Bakura wasn't paying attention to any of them. He continued to clasp his Yami's hand, praying fervently. He pleaded to his Yami through their mental connection for some kind of response. Suddenly the Millennium Ring started to glow and Bakura could feel his energy passing over to his Yami. He felt himself growing weaker, but then maybe his Yami was becoming stronger. Maybe . . . maybe his Yami would survive. Please, Yami, please . . .  
  
At first nothing happened. But then, suddenly, miraculously, Bakura felt his Yami's fingers move ever so slightly. Bakura opened his eyes, daring to hope. "Yami?" he whispered. He was very weak now, and barely able to keep holding the thief in his arms.  
  
Yami Bakura was silent, but then he stirred and muttered something incoherent. He didn't wake up, but Bakura had the feeling that the tomb raider was going to live. The boy smiled in his gentle way. "You're going to be alright, Yami," he said softly, feeling himself be overcome by the dizziness and darkness that had threatened to envelope him. He slumped backward against the inside of the limo door.  
  
Yugi gasped. "Bakura!"  
  
"What happened?" Mai asked.  
  
Yami Yugi knelt down next to Bakura and his Yami and examined the fatigued boy. "Bakura was weakened by transferring his strength to his Yami, but I believe that both of them will survive," the pharaoh announced presently. He smiled in his mysterious way, gently taking Yami Bakura into his arms and laying the thief back on the limo's seat. Then he did the same for Bakura, placing the boy on the opposite side of the limo. "Everything should be alright now," he said quietly, vanishing into the Millennium Puzzle.  
  
Yugi smiled and laid a hand on Bakura's shoulder. "Sleep well, my friend," he whispered. "You deserve it."  
  
Shortly afterward, the limo door opened and Joey, Tristan, and Tea came in. "Is everything okay in here?" Tea asked worriedly, then gasped upon seeing Bakura laying across the limo's seat.  
  
"He's okay, Tea," Yugi reassured her, and between himself and Mai, they related the events of the past hour in detail.  
  
The trio was astounded when they heard about what Bakura had managed to do to save his Yami.  
  
"Wow . . . our pal Bakura is somethin' else," Joey declared. "Who'd have thought he could pull that off?"  
  
"Hey . . ." Yugi stared at them and blinked in confusion. "Where's Kaiba?" he asked.  
  
"He's here," Seto replied indifferently, climbing into the limo.  
  
"Kaiba was just retrieving his chauffeur," Tristan explained.  
  
"Since he didn't eat the whole sandwich, he didn't suffer all the effects of the sleeping pill," Tea put in, "and the doctor decided that it was okay for him to go now."  
  
The limo started up and they drove off, heading for the game shop.  
  
About halfway there, Bakura started to rouse up. His dark brown eyes fluttered open and he blinked in confusion.  
  
"Hey there, kiddo," Mai smiled down at him. "Are you feeling okay?"  
  
Bakura smiled back weakly. "I'll be alright. But what about my Yami?" He turned to look at Yami Bakura, who was still unconscious but seemed to be at peace now.  
  
"You saved him, kiddo," Mai told him.  
  
"That's right." Yugi nodded. "He's going to be okay because of what you were able to do for him."  
  
Bakura smiled in relief and started to sit up.  
  
"Whoa, pal, just rest," Tristan said from his seat, gently pushing Bakura back down. "After doing that energy transfer thing, you've gotta be exhausted!"  
  
"I am a bit weak," Bakura admitted, laying back down on the seat.  
  
Before long the conversation switched to the mystery and what they were going to do about it.  
  
"I think maybe we should give this one up," Tea said firmly. "It's just too dangerous!"  
  
"I'm not giving up," Seto said coldly. "I'm going to find out who did this to me." His long bangs fell away from his forehead slightly, revealing the bandage over the deep cut. He growled in anger at the thought of someone beating him and then leaving him for dead in the cornfield.  
  
"Heck, I don't wanna give up either," Joey spoke up. "I wanna find out what's goin' on around here!"  
  
"If the headless phantom really has all of those horrible powers, he must be stopped," Bakura declared.  
  
Yugi nodded. "That's right." He paused. "Kaiba, did you say there's an alien movie being made around here?"  
  
"There is," Seto confirmed. "Some of the scenes are being filmed on KaibaCorp property near the edge of town."  
  
"See what I mean? You own half the city!" Joey remarked. Seto ignored him.  
  
"Do you think you could get us into the studio?" Yugi asked.  
  
"Most likely." Seto crossed his arms, his expression unreadable. "But if I do, you can't create an uproar."  
  
"Come on, would we do that?" Joey said with a too-angelic grin.  
  
"You're very capable of it," Seto replied, not amused.  
  
Before long they pulled up in front of the game shop. "Bakura, why don't you and your Yami stay here for the night?" Yugi offered.  
  
Bakura looked grateful. "Thank you, Yugi," he said softly as he sat up shakily. "That would probably be a good idea in case . . . in case he gets worse again," he added in a near-whisper, glancing at Yami Bakura.  
  
Yugi nodded, not quite sure what to say. "Um, I'll go inside and tell Grampa," he said, getting out of the limo and hurrying through the game shop door.  
  
"Hey, me and Tristan'll help you carry your Yami in," Joey volunteered. "You still must be pretty weak, pal."  
  
"Oh, I can manage," Bakura tried to protest as he climbed out of the limo. He grabbed the door, feeling a wave of dizziness wash over him. Mai rushed to steady him.  
  
"For once, Joey's right, kiddo," she said.   
  
"Heeey!" Joey complained at the barb.  
  
Mai ignored him. "You need some help getting inside yourself," she told Bakura.  
  
Bakura blushed. "Oh . . . that's really not necessary . . ."  
  
"We don't want you fainting on us," Tea chirped, and she and Mai each took one of Bakura's arms and helped him into the game shop.  
  
"Thank you," Bakura said softly, looking embarrassed.  
  
"Hello, Bakura," Grampa Muto smiled as he and Yugi came downstairs into the game shop from their residence above.  
  
"Hello, sir," Bakura greeted shyly. "Thank you for letting us stay here tonight."  
  
"Oh, we're happy to have you here," Grampa Muto replied.  
  
"That's right," Yugi smiled. He looked at the others. "Well, let's meet here tomorrow and decide on our next plan."  
  
"You got it, Yug," Joey said as he and Tristan carried Yami Bakura up the stairs. Grampa Muto looked a bit taken aback, but quickly recovered.  
****  
After everyone had left and Yugi was preparing to go to bed, he went to check on Bakura in the guest room. The other boy was sitting in a chair next to his Yami's bed, looking worried. Yami Bakura was muttering incoherent speech in his sleep and tossing around on the bed.  
  
"Hey Bakura," Yugi said, concerned, "are you okay?"  
  
Bakura smiled weakly. "I'll be a lot more okay when my Yami wakes up," he replied. "I've been so worried about him. . . ."  
  
Yugi smiled comfortingly. "I know. But I'm sure he'll be okay now, thanks to you, Bakura." He turned to go. "I'll see you tomorrow," he said. "I'll be right across the hall if you need anything."  
  
"Thank you, Yugi," Bakura said softly.  
  
Yugi nodded and went out of the room, gently shutting the door behind him.  
****  
In spite of the late hour when he got to bed, Yugi found himself up quite early the next cloudy morning and he decided to see how Bakura was doing.  
  
When he opened the door to the guest room, he found the silver-haired boy dozing uncomfortably in the chair he'd been sitting in. Yami Bakura had apparently knocked the quilt to the floor sometime during the night, because the tomb raider was laying uncovered on the bed, clutching the pillow tightly. Yugi had to chuckle at that.  
  
Carefully the boy picked up the quilt and spread it across Yami Bakura again. Then he found another quilt and draped it around Bakura, who didn't stir. He was exhausted after the long night and the energy transfer and definitely needed the sleep.  
  
With a smile, Yugi crept back out of the room and went to plan the day's agenda.  
  
First he called Seto's mansion. Velma answered, sounding perky as usual. "Hello! You've reached the Kaiba residence!" she chirped.  
  
"Hi," Yugi returned the greeting, "is your boss there?"  
  
"He sure is," Velma replied cheerfully. "You wanna talk to him?"  
  
"If I could, please," Yugi requested.  
  
"Sure thing! I'll find him for you in a jiffy!" Velma put the phone down and went off to get Seto.  
  
Yugi didn't have long to wait before the other boy picked the phone up. "Kaiba," he said in his usual, cold voice.  
  
"Hey, Kaiba," Yugi acknowledged.  
  
"Yes, I did manage to get studio passes for you," Seto told him shortly.  
  
"Oh," Yugi said in surprise. "Well, thanks, Kaiba. . . ."  
  
"And yes, I will be there," Seto added. "Nothing will stop me from finding out what's going on and why." He and Yugi hung up shortly afterwards.  
  
Yugi then called Joey, Tristan, Tea, and Mai and they planned to meet after school that day and catch the bus to the movie set.  
  
Bakura was still sound asleep, so after a quick breakfast of cereal Yugi was heading off to school, deciding that the other boy shouldn't be disturbed.  
****  
It was several hours later when Bakura woke up. For a moment he didn't remember he was sitting in a chair and he nearly fell on the floor. He blinked in bewilderment, looking around. "Oh my . . . have I been asleep?" he said aloud to the walls of the room.  
  
"You certainly have been, young man, and from everything Yugi told me about last night, you deserved every bit of it you got!"  
  
Bakura looked up to see Grampa Muto standing in the doorway, smiling. "How are you feeling today, Bakura?" the elderly man asked now.  
  
"Better than last night, Grampa Muto," Bakura replied with a shy smile. He turned to look at his Yami, who was laying prone on the bed and gripping the pillow.  
  
"I'm sure he'll be fine," Grampa Muto said comfortingly. "You, young man, should be thinking about getting some breakfast."  
  
Bakura shook his head. "Oh, no . . . thank you, but I'm really not hungry right now, sir," he said.  
  
Grampa Muto nodded. "Alright. Well, I'll be down in the game shop if you need me." He paused. "Oh, Yugi wanted me to give you a message," he remembered. "He said that he and the others are going to the movie set after school. He figured you wouldn't want to leave your counterpart, but he wanted to let you know anyway."  
  
"Thank you," Bakura said appreciatively.  
****  
After school the others met as planned and were soon en route to the studio.  
  
"Cindy's gonna meet us there," Joey said enthusiastically.  
  
"She'd better have a pass," Tristan sighed.  
  
"She does," Joey replied.  
  
"How's Bakura?" Mai asked.  
  
"He's a lot better," Yugi smiled. "We called and talked to him at lunchtime."  
  
"Hey, is that the studio over there?" Tea said suddenly, pointing at a group of long buildings just up ahead.  
  
"Looks like it," Tristan replied.  
  
"I wonder what's going on," Tea remarked. "It looks like there's some kind of trouble!"  
  
"You're right, Tea," Yugi exclaimed. People seemed to be milling around wildly, and every few seconds a truck or a van would pass by, full of equipment.  
  
"Eh, it's probably just show biz stuff," Joey said with a shrug as they got off the bus and walked up to the front gate. He glanced around. "Cindy must already be inside."  
  
"Passes, please," the guard requested, looking scared out of his wits.  
  
"Right here," Yugi replied, and everyone showed their cards.  
  
The guard nodded and went to open the gate. "I wouldn't go in there if I was you," he warned.  
  
"Why not?" Tea asked.  
  
"Strange things go on in there," the guard exclaimed in hushed tones.  
  
"What kinds of strange things?" Yugi wanted to know.  
  
The guard shuddered. "The place is jinxed! Props vanish without a trace and then turn up flying around by themselves. Cars start moving with no one to drive them. And just a few minutes ago, one of the actors was nearly killed!" 


	13. Welcome to Death Alley!

NOTES: Thanx to everyone who's been reviewing! ^^ It means a lot! Oh, and my stories will never be yaoi, so my readers who don't like that kinda writing won't have to worry about finding any of it here ^_~  
  
  
Everyone gasped.  
  
"No way!" Joey exclaimed. "Who? How?"  
  
"Kim Bates," the shaken guard replied. "A flying knife almost stabbed her in the heart!"  
  
"How awful!" Yugi cried.  
  
"Is she alright?" Tea asked.  
  
"You'll havta talk to her to find out," the guard said, pulling the gate open wide to let them in. "She's pretty shaken up, but then everyone here is!"  
  
Yugi nodded. "I can well imagine."  
  
"Man, get a load of this place!" Joey said, gawking and gesturing wildly. "Hey, there's Cindy!" He rushed over to the red-haired girl, who saw him and smiled.  
  
"Joey! Are you guys all okay?" she demanded. "I heard what happened to that poor woman. It's a miracle she's not dead!" she shuddered.  
  
"Man, you said it, Cindy," Joey agreed, shaking his head. "We're all okay now, but who knows what the heck might happen with the luck we've been havin' lately!"  
  
"We'll all have to be on our guard here," Yugi said with a nod.  
  
"So, Cindy, how long have you been here?" Joey asked as they started walking.  
  
"I got here just before you did," she replied. "I've been walking around the grounds waiting for you to show up."  
  
"Did you see anything goin' on that didn't look quite right?" Joey wondered.  
  
"Nothing at all," Cindy said, wide-eyed, "and I'm really glad I didn't!"  
  
"Hey, isn't that Kaiba over there?" Tristan exclaimed, pointing ahead. The young businessman was walking toward a building when he stopped suddenly and thrust his briefcase out in front of him.  
  
"What the heck is he tryin' to do?!" Joey said, looking completely baffled.  
  
They found out in the next instant as a deadly axe slammed into the briefcase. Seto staggered back from the impact, his eyes aflame with fury, and then he pulled out a plastic bag and wrapped it around the weapon. He pulled it out of the valise, glaring at it in distaste. He then changed his course of direction and headed for the security building.  
  
"Oh man . . ." Joey shook his head in disbelief.  
  
"He was nearly killed!" Tea gasped.  
  
"Hey, Kaiba, wait up!" Joey yelled, running after him.  
  
"Be careful, Joey!" Cindy's eyes shone with worry. "Someone might throw something at you!"  
  
"None of us are safe," Yugi said, summoning his Yami. "We must all stick together and not be separated for any reason."  
  
"That's fine with me," Mai declared as they all followed after Joey.  
****  
Bakura sighed and laid the quilt over his Yami's unconscious body again. The thief kept throwing it off in his sleep, seeming to prefer laying uncovered and shirtless on the bed. "Yami, you really must keep the quilt on," Bakura pleaded. "I don't want you to catch a cold. . . . You've been through enough already."  
  
Yami Bakura tensed, then relaxed and sighed, pulling the quilt up over his head.  
  
"Oh dear," Bakura said, shaking his head. "Yami, please don't do that!" He gently pulled the quilt down around his Yami's shoulders. "I do wish you'd wake up. . . ."  
  
Yami Bakura mumbled something unintelligible and then slipped into a deeper and quieter state of unconsciousness. Bakura sat back down in the chair next to the bed, hoping that his Yami would be able to sleep off any lingering effects of the poison and revive before too much longer.  
****  
The others finally caught up with Seto just outside the security building. "Whoa, man, that was one close call you had," Joey exclaimed in greeting.  
  
Seto opened the door to go inside. "I've had enough of this nonsense," he growled.  
  
"Believe me, Kaiba, we all have," Yugi sighed.  
  
The security guard looked up when he heard the door open. "Oh no," he groaned. "Don't tell me someone had another near-death 'accident'!"  
  
"Kaiba was almost skewered by this thing!" Joey announced, pointing to the axe that the other boy was still holding.  
  
"I want some answers, and I want them now," Seto said authoritatively to the guard, handing him the plastic bag with the weapon inside. "What have you been doing to prevent these so-called 'accidents' from happening?"  
  
The guard looked nervous as he accepted the axe and twisted the handle around in his hands. "We . . . we have extra security guards posted around the studio, Mr. Kaiba, and we set up security cameras to try to find who's committing these outrageous acts . . ."  
  
"Well, then I suggest you check the security cameras and see what you find . . . before anything else happens," Seto interrupted angrily, pointing his forefinger at the guard in emphasis. "If I had been injured, I wouldn't have hesitated to sue." He turned around and headed for the door.  
  
"How long have these 'accidents' been happening?" Yugi asked the guard now.  
  
"Well, odd things started happening the day we came here to set things up," the guard admitted, "but nothing life-threatening has happened before today, and now suddenly people are almost dying in freak accidents left and right!"  
  
"Can you think of anyone who would do these things?" Tea wanted to know.  
  
"Well, the producer of this film—Art Carmichael—could tell you more, but I do know that there was a man—he said he was a real estate agent—who kept pushing for us not to set up on this property," the guard replied. "It's a wild idea, but maybe he's doing it to scare us into leaving so he can use the property, or maybe try to buy it."  
  
"Do you know his name?" Yugi queried.  
  
"No, I don't, but . . . why in the world am I telling you kids all of this anyway?" The guard turned to go into a backroom. "I'm going to have this axe checked for fingerprints, Mr. Kaiba," he called. "My apologies for this . . . problem," he finished finally, disappearing through a door.  
  
"Man, there was somethin' fishy about that guy," Joey said, slamming his fist into his palm.  
  
"I agree," Tristan said with a nod.  
  
"This entire place is strange," Seto muttered, his eyes narrowing.  
  
"Well, let's start combin' the place for clues," Joey suggested. "There's gotta be some around here somewhere with all these 'accidents' goin' on."  
  
Yugi nodded. "And I'm afraid we may have to split up after all," he said. "Some of us should go look for this Art Carmichael. But . . ." He paused, looking at each of the others gravely. "Everyone must stay with their group. If anyone wanders off by themselves, the consequences could be catastrophic."  
  
"I hear ya, man," Tristan said. "Okay, how should we do this? We have an uneven number of people again."  
  
They wound up splitting into two groups of four—Yugi, his Yami, Tristan, and Mai would go look for clues and try to find the actress Kim Bates, and Seto, Tea, Joey, and Cindy would try to find Art Carmichael—with the agreement to meet back at the security building in two hours.  
  
"Be on guard at all times," Yami Yugi cautioned as they set out. "You never know what the culprits behind these dastardly acts might try next."  
  
Everyone nodded in agreement and then the two groups went their separate ways.  
  
"So, what's the plan?" Mai asked as her group passed by a building marked Props.  
  
"Hey, I think I see some guy spying on us," Tristan declared before Yugi or his Yami could answer. "Look over there!"  
  
The others turned to see what Tristan was pointing at and gasped. A shadowy figure clad in ninja garb was standing on top of the Costume building, glaring at them. "Prepare to meet your doom, foolish mortals!" it cackled, springing forth to attack.  
****  
"Where in the world are we gonna find this Art guy?" Joey sighed  
  
"Maybe in there?" Cindy suggested, pointing to a trailer marked "Art Carmichael—Producer."  
  
Joey grinned sheepishly and looked embarrassed. "Eh, well, I was just about to suggest that," he bluffed.  
  
They walked up to the trailer and Seto knocked on the door.  
  
"Maybe he's not there," Joey sighed.  
  
The door started to open. "Or maybe he is," Tea replied.  
  
A grouchy-looking man with wild black hair and a thick mustache stood in the doorway. "Yeah? What is it?" he growled. His gaze fell on Seto Kaiba and his eyes bugged out. "You!"  
  
"You know him?" Joey said, raising an eyebrow at Seto.  
  
The man clenched his hands into fists angrily. "So, you came back, eh? And this time you've brought friends! Some people never learn."  
  
"What are you talking about?" Seto's eyes narrowed. "I've never seen you before." Even as the boy said this, a flash of memory came back and he recalled the man's menacing voice. He had heard it somewhere before, but he didn't know how or where or why.  
  
The man paused. "You haven't, eh?" He considered this for a moment and then his lips curled up in a fake smile. "Oh, my apologies. I must have you mixed up with someone else."  
  
"I suppose you must have." Seto's cold expression didn't change. Something strange was going on, and he didn't buy the man's story for one second.  
  
Tea decided to break the silence that ensued. "Um, are you Art Carmichael?" she asked.  
  
The man nodded. "I am. Who are you kids?"  
  
"Well, I'm Tea Gardner, and this is Joey Wheeler, Cindy . . ." Tea paused. "I don't believe I ever caught your last name," she said in realization.  
  
Cindy giggled. "No, I don't believe I ever quite introduced myself completely," she admitted. "I'm Cindy Bradford."  
  
"And this is Seto Kaiba," Tea finished, indicating the blue-eyed boy.  
  
Carmichael nodded thoughtfully. "So you're Seto Kaiba," he said, continuing to smile in his nasty way. Tea definitely disliked this man. "You own this property, don't you?"  
  
"I do," Seto nodded stiffly.  
  
"Well, we came by to talk to you about the strange things that have been happening," Tea said. "One of the guards was telling us about a suspicious real estate agent who was very much against you using this property to make your movie."  
  
"Oh. Oliver Brown," Carmichael said. "Now he's a real oddball. Thinks the place is a communication center for extra-terrestrials. If he wanted to badly enough, he could probably create some of the nonsense that's been going on around here to make us pack up and leave."  
  
"Where does this guy work?" Joey asked.  
  
"At some real estate company in the city," Carmichael told him. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get to the bottom of this." He sneered at Seto before shutting the door of his trailor.  
  
"Wow, he was weird too!" Cindy exclaimed. "He seemed a bit too eager to accuse that Oliver Brown guy." She poked Seto playfully on the arm. "And who on earth would he be getting you confused with?"  
  
"No one, most likely." Seto crossed his arms in vexation.  
  
"Do you think he was responsible for what happened to you?" Tea asked.  
  
"I wouldn't be surprised," Seto replied.  
  
"But why in the world would he do that to ya?" Joey threw his hands up in frustration.  
  
Seto grunted. "I intend to find out."  
  
"Is it my imagination, or is it getting really misty?" Cindy exclaimed, blinking.   
  
"It's not your imagination," Joey sighed. "Before long, this fog will probably be thicker than pea soup!"  
  
Seto looked indifferent. "Let's have a look in here," he said, opening the door to the prop building. The others quickly followed, not wanting to get separated. They stood in the dim light of the room uncertainly, glancing around for a light switch. Without warning, a soft click was heard and the building was bathed in a bright glow.  
  
"Did you turn the lights on?" Tea asked Seto.  
  
The blue-eyed boy shook his head. "No."  
  
"And I didn't turn them on," Cindy said with a blink.  
  
All eyes turned to Joey for his answer to the question. But instead of answering, the Brooklyn-born boy grabbed Cindy and dropped to the floor, yelling, "Look out!! Flyin' trunk at two o'clock!!"  
  
"Huh?" Tea gasped, just as Seto grasped her wrist and pulled her to the floor as well—and just in time. The stray trunk smashed into the wall behind them and plastic swords and knifes, as well as a few assorted bowling balls and and top hats, rolled out.  
  
"Well, that was different," Cindy declared.  
  
A plastic dagger bounced off Joey's head and he stared at it in consternation. "Man, who the heck tossed that thing?!"  
  
"There's no one in sight!" Tea said, standing up.  
  
"They can't have gotten far," Seto remarked.  
  
"Then let's go after them!" Joey jumped up and ran down the hall, disappearing from sight.  
  
"Joey, wait for us!" Tea yelled, as she and the other two chased after him.  
  
A loud crash echoed through the building.  
  
"Joey! Are you okay?" Cindy screamed frantically.  
  
"What's he gone and gotten himself into now?" Tea sighed.  
  
They rounded the corner and stood still in shock. Joey was up against the wall, several knives pinning his jacket to it and keeping him from escaping. A strange blonde woman was standing in front of him, holding another of the deadly weapons to his throat! 


	14. Odd Warning

Note: Do I really need to say it again? This isn't yaoi ^_~  
  
  
"What are you doing?!" Tea screamed.  
  
The woman looked up and smiled. "I'm just practicing for my big scene in the alien movie." She lowered the knife to her side.  
  
Seto went over to Joey and pulled the knives out of the other boy's jacket, releasing him from the wall. Joey turned to the woman, glaring daggers at her.  
  
"I never gave you permission to use me as a pincushion!" he yelled.  
  
"I wasn't going to hurt you," the woman said, touching the knife's tip to Joey's chest gently.  
  
"You coulda fooled me!" Joey grumbled.  
  
"Well, no real harm was done," Cindy said, putting her arm around Joey comfortingly.  
  
"Did you see anyone else around?" Tea asked the woman now. "Someone threw a trunk at us when we came in."  
  
"I saw no one," the woman replied. "But feel free to look around all you wish." With that she walked out through a back exit.  
  
"Oh man, is everyone around here a weirdo?!" Joey said in frustration, messing up his hair.  
  
"Joey, how was she able to pin you to the wall?" Tea asked, her eyes twinkling. "Did she catch you off your guard?"  
  
"Of course not!" Joey replied, a bit too quickly. Seto smirked at him.  
****  
Bakura closed the book he was trying to read and sighed.  
  
Yami Bakura stirred, groaning softly.  
  
"Yami?" Bakura perked up, looking hopeful. "Are you awake?"  
  
Yami Bakura threw the quilt off of him again—sending it flying right over Bakura, who quickly pulled it off and set it back on the bed—and then lay in silence for several long minutes before his eyes fluttered open. "Bakura?"  
  
Bakura brightened. "Oh Yami! I . . . I was so worried!" He embraced the thief, feeling as though an immense weight had been lifted from his shoulders.  
  
Yami Bakura blinked, looking confused. "What happened to me?" He pushed Bakura away. "And why am I not wearing a shirt?!" he demanded.  
  
"You were hurt, Yami," Bakura said softly. "That horrible thing you fought with in the canyons poisoned you." He looked into the tomb robber's eyes. "Yami, you almost died!"  
  
"That's ridiculous," Yami Bakura retorted. "Nothing can destroy me, except for . . ." He trailed off, looking at Bakura suspiciously. "The Shadow Poison . . ." he muttered.  
  
"Yes," Bakura said with a nod and a shudder. "It was the Shadow Poison."  
  
"To be injected with the Shadow Poison is to be handed death, even for non-mortals," Yami Bakura stated, touching the bandage on his shoulder with a grimace. "Why am I still alive?"  
  
Bakura paused. "It was a miracle, Yami," he whispered finally.  
****  
"Look out!" Tristan yelled. "That weird guy's coming right at us!"  
  
Everyone scattered just as the ninja landed on the ground, unharmed. He leaped up, wielding a deadly-looking weapon.  
  
"Stop!" Yami Yugi ordered in a commanding voice.  
  
The ninja didn't pause and instead swung the weapon right at the pharaoh, who retaliated by grabbing it forcefully while the others watched, wide-eyed. The ninja stared at Yami Yugi, looking scared.  
  
"Now . . ." Yami Yugi looked into the ninja's eyes. "Are you going to stop terrorizing us?"  
  
The ninja gulped. "I sure will, mister," he said in a much milder voice than before. "I . . . I'm not a real ninja—someone hired me to come up here and jump out at you guys. I thought it was part of the movie—honest I did!" He removed his hood and Mai, Yugi, and Tristan stepped back, shocked. Yami Yugi looked unfazed.  
  
"You're . . . you're just a kid!" Tristan exclaimed.  
  
"But . . . you sounded so much different when you were up on the roof," Yugi said, blinking.  
  
"Yeah, well . . . I'm a pretty good voice actor, if I do say so myself," the boy said proudly. He had wild red hair and freckles and looked about twelve or thirteen. He reminded Yugi of a kid they'd met up with on their last case.  
  
"Can you tell us who hired you?" Yami Yugi asked.  
  
"Sorry, I have no idea, mister," the boy replied, shaking his head. "Some guy delivered the message to me—said it was from his boss—and when I agreed to do the job, the same guy gave me the money—in cash!"  
  
Yami Yugi nodded. "What did the man look like?"  
  
The boy paused. "Well, he was a real stern type. He had these real cold gray eyes and whitish hair, and he was built like Arnold Schwartzenegger!" He gestured wildly.  
  
"He doesn't sound familiar," Mai sighed, shaking her head.  
  
"Another weird person to add to the case," Tristan agreed with a sigh of his own.  
  
"Can you tell us your name?" Yami Yugi asked now.  
  
The boy grinned. "Sure can! I'm Hank Johnson, aspiring actor!"  
  
The others introduced themselves and then Yami Yugi requested Hank to call them if he remembered anything else or if he had any more contact with the mysterious man. Hank whole-heartedly agreed before hurrying off.  
  
"So what do we do now?" Mai asked.  
  
"Now, we resume our quest of searching for Kim Bates," Yami Yugi replied.  
  
"It sure is getting foggy all of a sudden!" Yugi exclaimed, looking around.  
  
"Man, you said it, Yugi," Tristan agreed.   
  
"I wonder how the others are doing?" Mai mused.  
****  
As a matter of fact, the others were continuing to have their own odd adventures. After the mysterious woman had left, the teens had began to examine the prop building and were not having any luck finding useful clues.  
  
"Man, this mystery is just too weird!" Joey cried in frustration after about an hour of this. "How the heck are we ever gonna get to the bottom of it?!"  
  
"Maybe we should try following some of the suspects, you know, like the detectives in books do," Cindy suggested.  
  
"We should find this Oliver Brown and talk to him," Tea mused.  
  
Suddenly Seto stopped, looking around suspiciously. Joey, caught off guard, clanged into him abruptly and nearly sent them both to the floor. "Hey, man, what's up?!" the Brooklyn boy demanded.  
  
"I heard a moan," Seto declared.  
  
"A moan?!" the others repeated.  
  
"I didn't hear anything," Cindy said, wide-eyed.  
  
Seto grunted in reply and went over to the wall, listening carefully. "I heard it again," he announced.  
  
"I think I heard it this time too," Tea said, looking worried.  
  
"Man, is someone in the wall?!" Joey exclaimed incredulously.  
  
Seto didn't answer. Instead he pushed hard on the wood, trying to get it to open. Without warning, it suddenly did, swinging outward and sending Seto flying backward onto the floor.  
  
"Whoa, man, are you okay?" Joey asked, looking down at him.  
  
Seto picked himself up, rubbing at his head. "I'm fine," he replied.  
  
The four teens gathered around the yawning hole in the wall and stared into it. A young man in his early twenties was laying on the floor, groaning and mumbling unintelligibly. Tea and Cindy gasped.  
  
Quickly Seto and Joey knelt on the floor next to him. "Hey, man, what's wrong?" Joey asked, shaking him gently.  
  
"He can't answer you," Seto told him grimly. "It appears as though he's been drugged." Quickly he pulled out his cell phone and called 911.  
  
"Man, this is freaky," Joey said, shaking his head. "Hey, what happened to that guy from the convention who got conked on the head?" he asked.  
  
"He has a severe concussion," Seto told him. "He hasn't regained consciousness yet."  
  
"What could all this mean?" Tea wondered.  
  
"It means that things are dangerous!" Cindy declared with a shudder. "You guys should get out of the mystery-solving business!"  
  
"Hey, no way!" Joey protested. "We've gotta solve this!" He grinned at Cindy lopsidedly. "Ol' Joey won't let anything bad happen to anyone!"  
  
Seto raised an eyebrow at him. "And just how do you propose to pull that off?"  
  
Before Joey could answer, the door was flung open and a frazzled-looking young woman stepped in. "What's happening in here?!" she demanded. "I just saw an ambulance pull up in front!"  
  
"We found someone hurt in here," Tea told her.  
  
The woman came over, took one look at the man laying on the floor, and turned pale. "Frank! Oh no . . . oh no. . . . That awful man . . . he actually went through with his plot! . . ."  
  
"You know this guy?" Joey said, looking surprised.  
  
The woman nodded. "Yes . . . oh yes, I most certainly do! Frank is my fiancé." She looked as though she were about to say more, but then the paramedics came in and she watched fearfully as they loaded Frank onto a stretcher.  
  
"Will he be alright?" she asked.  
  
"Hard to say," the paramedic replied grimly. The woman climbed into the ambulance worriedly and they drove off.  
  
"Man, things are happenin' too fast," Joey said, shaking his head.  
  
"I wonder what she meant by 'that awful man . . . he actually went through with his plot'?" Tea mused. "Who was she talking about? Was someone threatening Frank and she knew about it?"  
  
Seto bent down and picked something up from the ground.  
  
"What's that?" Tea asked, trying to see.  
  
Seto handed it to her. Tea stared at it and gasped.  
  
"Man, Tea, what *is* it?" Joey demanded.  
  
"It's a business card," she told him, "for Kim Bates, the actress who was almost killed earlier! That woman who was just here must have been Kim!"  
  
"Oh great!" Joey groaned. "More complications! Nothin's making sense!"  
  
"Hey, is that Yugi and the others over there?" Cindy said suddenly, pointing. The fog had cleared somewhat by this time and they could see Yugi's unmistakable multi-colored hair just up ahead.  
  
"It sure is, and boy, am I glad to see them!" Joey exclaimed. "Yug! Hey, Yug!" he called, waving. Yugi and the others in his group turned to look.  
  
"Joey!" Yugi called back with a wave of his own, and he, his Yami, Tristan, and Mai all came over.  
  
"How are you guys?" Mai asked. "You all look awfully shaken up!"  
  
Quickly Tea, Cindy, and Joey related their recent escapades while Seto stood by silently, his arms crossed. By the time they finished, Yugi and the others were wide-eyed.  
  
"So, to put it simply—you met Carmichael, nearly got hit with a flying trunk, encountered some woman who pinned Joey to the wall with knives, found a drugged man in the wall, and then met Kim Bates?" Mai said slowly.  
  
"We sure did!" Cindy exclaimed as they started to walk towards the exit.  
  
"And you say that Carmichael told you the real estate agent's name was Oliver Brown?" Yami Yugi asked.  
  
"That's right," Joey said, looking vaguely confused.  
  
"I met Oliver Brown at the convention," Yugi declared. "We should go see what he has to say."  
  
Seto checked his watch. "It's nearly seven o'clock. I doubt highly that he would still be in his office."  
  
"Perhaps we could visit him at his residence," Yami Yugi suggested.  
  
They passed by a phone booth just outside the gate and Joey went in to look in the telephone directory. "Alright, I've found his address," the boy announced presently. "He lives over near Tea's place."  
  
"Alright then, let's head over there and see what kind of luck we have," Yami Yugi said, and they all climbed into Seto's limo.  
  
It wasn't long before they found the house. "Hey, isn't that Art Carmichael comin' out the door?!" Joey exclaimed suddenly.  
  
Everyone turned to look. "You're right, Joey, it is!" Cindy declared.  
  
"Man, he looks mad," Tristan commented as Carmichael got into his car and slammed the door hard. When he had driven out of sight, the teens got out of the limo and went up to the porch. Yugi knocked on the door and soon it was opened by a frazzled-looking Oliver Brown. He took one look at Yugi and he nearly fell over in apparent shock.  
  
"You shouldn't be here!" he exclaimed, looking almost frantic. "It's not safe!" 


	15. New Suspicions and Dangers

"Not safe?" Yugi repeated, surprised. "Why, Mr. Brown?! What's going on?!"  
  
Oliver shook his head firmly. "No . . . no. . . . You all must leave! . . . Art Carmichael was just here and he said you'd been by to talk to him. . . . You kids shouldn't be getting involved in this!"  
  
"Unfortunately, we're already involved in it, Mr. Brown," Tea said.  
  
"We got involved when the first UFO flew over Domino City," Joey added.  
  
Oliver leaned against the door frame. "It's too dangerous for young kids like you!" He paused. "For that matter, it's even too dangerous for old fogies like me!"  
  
"Man, you know somethin' you ain't tellin'," Joey declared.  
  
"Do you know how I got injured?" Seto demanded.  
  
Oliver's eyes widened. "It was you?!"  
  
"Yes, it was me." Seto's eyes narrowed. "And what do you know about it? Tell me!"  
  
Oliver looked around furtively. "Come inside, all of you," he said, holding the door open wide.  
****  
When everyone was safely in Oliver's living room and introductions had been made, Seto again insisted on hearing what the man knew about the strange goings-on.  
  
"Well, I can't claim to know everything, because I don't," Oliver began, "but I've been suspecting for a long time that Art Carmichael has been involved in underhanded deeds and recently found it out to be true. I'm sure he didn't tell you kids, but I'm not really a real estate agent anymore. I'm Carmichael's silent business partner!"  
  
The teens stared at him in shock.  
  
"Oh man . . . why did he lie to us?!" Joey spoke up finally, messing up his hair. "And if he was lyin', then what was that guard talkin' about?!"  
  
"This is a very complex plot," Oliver said grimly. "When Carmichael first realized that I knew the truth—which was only a few days ago—he tried to convince me to join forces with him, but I refused. That's when he set about trying to discredit me by inventing the whole phony story about how I, a real estate agent, tried to insist that he not rent the KaibaCorp-owned property for his movie. Then he set up those 'accidents' today and blamed them on me. That guard must be working with him, helping to spread the falsehoods." He started to pace the floor nervously. "Since I am his silent business partner and no one knows who I am, everyone has just believed the false stories. And if I try to go to the police, Carmichael says he'll hurt my family." He stopped pacing and shook his head sadly. "And I don't doubt for a minute that he would."  
  
"That's awful!" Yugi declared. "But what truth do you know?" he asked. "What kinds of underhanded things is Carmichael involved with?"  
  
Oliver shook his head. "I really shouldn't say anything. Knowing too much is what got Seto Kaiba here beaten to a pulp. He would have been killed if Carmichael had had his way, and I don't doubt that Carmichael will try again if he thinks you're all being too nosy."  
  
"Well, we're not giving up until Carmichael and all the criminals working with him are caught!" Yugi said determinedly.  
  
Oliver paused, apparently remembering something unpleasant. "Several days ago, Carmichael told me that a teenage boy was getting too nosy and that he was going to have to do something about it, but I didn't take him seriously." He shook his head sadly. "I just didn't see how he could possibly hurt a boy. But then a couple of days later, I accidentally overheard a conversation between two of Carmichael's goons. They were talking about how they'd captured and beaten the elder Kaiba boy, just as Carmichael had wanted."  
  
Everyone gasped and Tea looked horrified. Seto's eyes narrowed angrily.  
  
"They went on to say that Carmichael had tried to kill him, but that the boy had escaped," Oliver continued. "They didn't think he would get very far with his injuries, and they also didn't seem worried that he would tell someone what had happened to him. They said he likely wouldn't remember much about the experience—or about his previous knowledge of Carmichael's criminal acts—but they didn't say why." He paused. "I quickly found Carmichael and confronted him with what I'd heard. He didn't deny it."  
  
"That slimeball!" Joey declared hotly.  
  
"Tell me, Seto Kaiba," Oliver said now, turning to the blue-eyed boy, "do you remember anything about your experience?"  
  
Seto clenched his fists angrily. "Why should I tell you?" he growled. He actually had had more flashes of memory about Carmichael's henchmen beating him, but he wasn't about to say anything. He had the sinking feeling that Oliver couldn't be trusted any more than Carmichael.  
  
"Hey, take it easy, man," Joey said irritably. "He's only worried about you."  
  
Oliver finally sat down and leaned forward, staring intently into Seto's ice-blue eyes. "Joseph is right, Seto Kaiba—I am."  
  
"I doubt that highly," Seto retorted.  
  
"Oh Kaiba!" Tea cuffed him on the arm, looking angry.  
  
"It's alright," Oliver reassured them quickly.  
  
"Mr. Brown, I can appreciate you wanting to keep us all safe, but we need to get these criminals behind bars, where they won't be able to hurt anyone anymore," Yugi spoke up solemnly, summoning his Yami. "Please, you must tell us what you know."  
  
Oliver paused, considering this for a moment. Then he sighed, nodding. "I suppose you're right. Carmichael is running a very profitable jewel smuggling ring and secretly conspiring with some strange people—whom I suspect are extra-terrestrials—to rule the world," he said dramatically. "All the proof is hidden at the studio, if you're all brave enough to go back there."  
  
"Hey, of course we're brave enough!" Joey declared. "We wanna catch these crumbs!"  
  
"But please . . ." Oliver begged, "don't tell the police about any of this. I don't want my family to be hurt." He stood up shakily. "And now, I must ask you all to leave. If Carmichael finds out you were here, there's no telling what he might do!"  
****  
"Now that was a weird experience!" Tristan remarked as they walked back to Seto's limo.  
  
"Why were you so rude to Mr. Brown, Kaiba?" Tea demanded.  
  
"I don't trust him," Seto said darkly.  
  
"Hey, what's not to trust?" Joey said airily. "Sure, he's kinda eccentric and everything, but he seemed genuine enough to me."  
  
"Actually, I think Kaiba might be right about this one," Yugi said grimly. "There was something not quite right about Mr. Brown. Why did he suddenly agree to tell us about Carmichael's criminal acts when at first he'd been so adament about keeping the knowledge away from us?"  
  
"That was definitely odd," Cindy piped up with a nod of agreement.  
  
"Hey, he finally came around to our way of thinkin'," Joey shrugged.  
  
Yugi shook his head. "No . . . no, I'm afraid he was trying to lead us into a trap."  
  
"Man, we can't trust anybody!" Joey cried in frustration, messing up his hair.  
  
"So what should we do, Yugi?" Tea asked worriedly.  
  
Yugi sighed. "Well, I must admit, I'm afraid that if we want to solve this, we will have to return to the studio."  
  
"But what if it is a trap?" Tea gasped.  
  
"We'll just have to take that chance," Seto said grimly. "I'm not about to let Carmichael get away with what he's doing, especially after what he did to me!"  
  
Yugi nodded. "Of course we will have to be on our guard at all times. There is no telling what dastardly surprises they might have waiting for us."  
  
"Maybe a couple of people should hang out here and kinda spy on Mr. Brown," Joey suggested.  
  
"Not a bad idea," Yugi agreed. "Do you and Tristan want to do it?"  
  
"Sure, why not?" Joey grinned.  
  
"And I'll help," Cindy smiled.  
  
"The rest of us will go back to the game shop and check on Bakura and his Yami, then plan our next move," Yugi decided.  
****  
When they arrived back at Yugi's place, they were surprised to find Yami Bakura flipping through the channels on TV, looking extremely bored. He was wearing a green shirt and a pair of jeans, and he didn't look up when they came in, tho Yugi was certain he had heard them do so.  
  
Bakura, hearing the door open, came out of the kitchen looking happy. "Hello!" he greeted Yugi and the others. "As you can see, my Yami is feeling better." He asked if they had had any luck at the movie studio and was shocked and horrifed when they told him of their experiences.  
  
"I feel that in order to solve this mystery once and for all, we must return to the studio," Yugi announced.  
  
"Oh my," Bakura exclaimed, wide-eyed. He paused. "Well, I'm certainly coming with you," he declared.  
  
"You dolt! There's no telling what you might get yourself into!" Yami Bakura growled.  
  
"Oh, I'm not worried about that, Yami," Bakura replied. "I want to help you solve this mystery," he said to Yugi and the others.  
  
Yugi smiled and nodded. "And we're more than happy to have you come with us," he said.  
  
"Hey, I just thought of something," Tea spoke up suddenly. "Weren't we always going to go back to Summit Hills?"  
  
"That's right!" Bakura exclaimed, blinking. "We were planning to investigate that odd house out there!"  
  
Yugi looked around at the others. "Well, perhaps we should all split up again and some of us will go to Summit Hills while the rest of us investigate the studio," he suggested.  
  
"That's not a bad idea," Mai mused.  
  
In the end, they agreed that Mai would go with Bakura to Summit Hills while Yugi, Tea, and Seto would go back to the studio. If nothing went amiss, they would try to contact each other within two hours. Yami Bakura was still weak from his battle with the Shadow Poison, and therefore would remain in the Millennium Ring unless he was needed.  
  
As they set out for the studio, Tea couldn't shake the feeling that something awful was very likely to happen. When she glanced at Yugi and Seto, she could tell that the boys were thinking the same thing.  
****  
"Man, this is a drag," Tristan sighed.  
  
"You said it!" Joey grumbled. "We've been cramped under this window for hours just watchin' that Oliver Brown guy, and he just keeps sittin' in his chair watchin' TV!" He glanced over at Cindy, who was looking through a window on the other side of the house. "See anything interesting over there?" he asked.  
  
"Nothing at all," Cindy sighed.  
  
In the house, the phone rang and Oliver hurried to answer it.  
  
"Finally, some action," Joey remarked.  
  
"Man, we must be bored if we can accept a phone call as 'action,'" Tristan sighed.  
  
"Can you hear what he's sayin'?" Joey asked as they moved up closer to the window.  
  
"Nope," Tristan replied.  
  
"C'mon, let's get closer," Joey said, pushing himself against the glass.  
  
"Get down, Joey!" Cindy, still on the other side of the house, hissed. "You're going to be seen!"  
  
"Hey, relax! I'll be fine!" Joey assured her with a typical grin and then promptly clanked into the window—hard. "Ow!" he yelled loudly.  
  
In the house, Oliver lowered the phone suspiciously and turned to look. "What was that?!" he exclaimed, getting up. Joey ducked down just as the man walked over to the window and peered out. Not being able to see anything, Oliver turned back to the telephone.  
  
"Man, Joey, that was a close one," Tristan said, shaking his head.  
  
At that moment, the window opened and Oliver looked down at them. "I knew I heard something," he said in an angry voice much different from the nervous tone the teens had heard him use earlier. "And now you two Peeping Toms are going to pay!"  
  
Joey and Tristan stared at him, then at each other. "Uh oh," they said in unison.  
****  
Meanwhile, Mai and Bakura had wandered into the abandoned mansion at Summit Hills.  
  
"So I guess we're looking for any clues as to how those aliens—or whatever they were—disappeared from the roof so fast," Mai said.  
  
"That's right," Bakura nodded.  
  
"Well, let's get it over with as soon as possible. This place gives me the creeps!" Mai declared.  
  
They walked on ahead in the near-dark, with only the light from the moon outside to light their way, which proved to not be much of a help. With a scream of terror, Bakura suddenly plunged through a gaping hole in the floor and disappeared from sight! 


	16. Tense Situations

Mai gasped, horrified. "Bakura! Hey, kiddo, are you alright?!" She knelt down next to the cavity worriedly, staring into the darkness. "Hey! Say something!"  
  
A groan came from below.  
  
"Oh no," Mai whispered and hurried to find something she could use to get into the basement. After a thorough search that turned up nothing, she finally found an old dumbwaiter. "Hmm . . . I wonder if this old trap still works," she mused. She climbed inside and operated the rope, causing the rickety, old-fashion elevator to descend to the floor below. Quickly she shoved the panel open and looked around. "Bakura? Are you down here?"  
  
"He's here," Yami Bakura's familiar, gravelly voice spoke up from somewhere in the pitch black room. A bright light—which Mai realized was coming from the Millennium Ring—suddenly bathed the room in a soft glow, revealing that Yami Bakura was cradling the young boy on his lap. Bakura's eyes were closed, but Mai could see his chest was rising and falling and she breathed a sigh of relief. "He just had the wind knocked out of him," the tomb raider told her. "The fool was lucky he landed on that sack of grain instead of on the cement floor."  
  
"Sack of grain?!" Mai repeated. "What's a sack of grain doing in an abandoned house?!"  
  
Yami Bakura's eyes narrowed. His shoulder was bothering him again, but he wasn't about to admit it. "I intend to find out," he vowed.  
****  
"It must be after midnight!" Tea exclaimed as she, Yugi, and Seto climbed over the gate leading into the studio. "Why are there so many lights on in here?!"  
  
"And what's that thing?!" Seto demanded, indicating a huge, saucer-shaped object just up ahead.  
  
"A UFO!" Yugi gasped.  
  
"Just don't tell me it's full of little green men from Mars," Seto muttered sarcastically.  
  
"Alright then, I won't," Yugi replied with a vague smile.  
  
As they got closer, an army of alien-like creatures sprang out at the teens, jabbering and glaring.  
  
"More aliens!" Tea shrieked. "Are these robots too?!"  
  
Seto batted at one that tried to shoot him down with its laser gun and the creature shattered into metal pieces. "It would appear that way," he remarked.  
  
Using the Millennium Puzzle, Yugi raised his hand and threw the mechanical Martians against the nearest building, deactivating all of them at once. "We must enter the UFO," Yugi declared. "But we must tread cautiously."  
  
As they slowly went up the open ramp, Tea turned to Yugi worriedly. "Yugi, you did tell your grampa where we were going, didn't you?"  
  
Yugi nodded. "If he hasn't heard from us within three hours, he will notify the authorities."  
  
The three teens stood in the doorway, surveying their new and unique surroundings. A control panel lined one wall of the room they had entered, and several doors leading to other rooms adorned the opposite one. It looked like the classic "alien movie" set.  
  
"Is this for the movie?" Tea wondered aloud.  
  
"It's possible," Yugi nodded. "Certainly more probable than the thought that it truly is from another planet."  
  
There was silence as they glanced around at the control panel, and then suddenly a sharp, tinny voice yelled, "Intruders! Intruders!" and a strange barrel turned to face them.  
  
"They're going to shoot us!" Tea screamed.  
  
"Everyone scatter!" Yugi ordered. "Pick a door—now!"  
  
Tea, Seto, and Yugi each ran through a different door as the automatic computer began to fire the gun. Laser fire exploded all around the doors they had passed through, very narrowly missing hitting any of them. But now they had a new problem—they were all separated from each other, and they didn't dare go back into the control room.  
  
Yugi found himself standing in a strange corridor and decided to follow it along for a bit.  
  
Tea was in an oddly-lighted room that looked a bit like an alien's living room, with strangely-shaped furniture and fruit in a basket on a table. She decided to make the best of things and try to look for any possible clues.  
  
Seto wound up falling down a strange tunnel that was almost like a long playground slide. His hair flew wildly across his face and into his eyes and he let out an involuntary scream as his flight was suddenly speeded up. He had no idea where or when he would crash, but he had the feeling that he wasn't going to like it.  
****  
Oliver Brown climbed out of the window and grabbed Joey and Tristan before they could run away. "Punk brats," he muttered. "Your meddling days are over!"  
  
"Man, Kaiba said he didn't trust you!" Joey burst out. "Was he right?"  
  
Oliver sneered. "Well, you'll just have to decide that for yourself, Joseph." He pulled out a gun and pointed it at them. "Now . . . you're both coming with me, and if either of you tries anything stupid, someone will get hurt," he growled.  
  
Joey and Tristan walked along obediently, conversing in undertones.  
  
"Man, Joey, now you've really gotten us into a jam," Tristan remarked angrily.  
  
"Hey, he probably would've found us soon enough anyway," Joey protested lamely. He glanced around. "And where in the world did Cindy go?!"  
  
"I guess we can hope she went for help," Tristan muttered.  
  
Oliver forced the two boys into his house and shoved them viciously to the floor. "Now," he snarled, towering over them with the gun, "I'm sure you've heard the idiom 'curiosity kills the cat.' You're about to find out that cats aren't the only creatures to die after meddling in things they shouldn't." He raised the gun high, placing his finger dangerously on the trigger.  
  
"Hey, it's been great knowin' ya, pal," Joey said to Tristan.  
  
"Same here," Tristan said with a nod.  
  
Suddenly Joey gasped and pointed at something just behind Oliver. "Oh man!" he exclaimed. "It's the Abominable Snowman!"  
  
Tristan, catching on, also gasped. "And E.T.!" he added.  
  
"What? Where?" Oliver whirled around.  
  
With a sneer, Joey lashed out and kicked at the man, knocking him down. The gun flew out of his hand, firing harmlessly into the floor.  
  
"Man, I can't believe he fell for that old gag," Tristan grinned.  
  
Joey grinned too, sitting on the man's back to restrain him from getting up. "Well, it looks like ol' Joey got us both out of a rushed trip to the afterlife!" he bragged. He looked down at Oliver, who was muttering something under his breath. "Now . . . wanna tell us exactly what's goin' on around here?" he asked.  
  
"Ridiculous adolescents. . . . I don't have to tell you anything!" Oliver growled.  
  
"Fine. Have it your way," Joey shrugged.  
  
"I intend to," Oliver said with an evil sneer.  
  
"Is it just me, or do you get the feeling that he has a backup plan?" Tristan remarked.  
  
"Man, I get that feeling too," Joey groaned.  
  
A panel in the wall opened and a vicious-looking army of aliens appeared, being led by a familiar human girl holding two laser guns. "Prepare to meet your doom, boys," she purred in a voice quite different from the cheerful, bubbly one the teens had known.  
  
Joey and Tristan gasped. "Cindy!"  
****  
After Bakura recovered, Yami Bakura went back into the Millennium Ring and Bakura and Mai tried to figure out the mystery behind the baffling sack of grain.  
  
"Why don't we go up into the attic?" Bakura suggested. "It's right under the roof where the aliens disappeared. Who knows? Maybe we'll find some good clues there."  
  
"I'm game," Mai replied with a shrug.  
  
It didn't take too long to find their way into the attic, and soon the two teens were poking around amongst the old junk and cobwebs.  
  
"Hey, check this out!" Mai exclaimed suddenly, pointing to a perfect square cut in the attic's ceiling. "Is this what I think it is?"  
  
Bakura came over to look. "Good show!" he said excitedly. "This is a trapdoor. Mai, I do believe you've solved the mystery of how the aliens vanished so abruptly. They must have re-entered the house through this door and then stayed hidden in a secret room somewhere in the house until the police concluded that no one was around!"  
  
A nasty cackle echoed throughout the building.  
  
"Oh dear!" Bakura gasped.  
  
"Hey, kiddo . . . that wasn't your Yami by any chance, was it?" Mai asked.  
  
"No, it wasn't," Bakura replied, shaking his head.  
  
"I was afraid of that," Mai sighed.  
****  
The tunnel seemed to go on forever, twisting and turning and then spiraling downward. Seto found himself getting very dizzy. His wild ride stopped suddenly when the slide came to an end, sending him flying through the air and crashing to the hard floor below. The boy grunted in pain and slowly got to his feet, looking at his surroundings curiously. He recognized the room—its bright lights, the table with its odd instruments, the blood-splattered walls—the latter of which made him wince—and suddenly he remembered almost everything.  
  
He had been suspicious of Carmichael ever since he had first rented the property and had started an investigation to find out what kind of person the guy was. What he had found out wasn't pretty.  
  
Carmichael's real name was Alfred Hartman and he was a traitor, an enemy spy running from the government. He had set up the ruse of filming the alien movie, but in reality he was using the place to hide from the authorities. What's more, he and all of the movie's crew members were part of a secret organization bent on world domination. Seto had been going to call in the authorities and confront Carmichael with what he knew, but he had been ambushed by about a dozen members of the secret society before he could. Seto was a strong fighter who was perfectly capable of taking care of himself, but these men—all tough, Arnold Schwartzenegger types—had ganged up on him and then had shot him in the chest with one of the weapons they had created in one of their cryptic meetings, knocking him out. That was probably where the odd mark had come from, he decided now as he slowly walked around the room.  
  
When Seto had woken up, he had been chained to the wall and those same men were beating him viciously, showing no mercy. Then Carmichael had come in with a deadly laser gun, prepared to end the boy's life for knowing too much. Seto, always clever, had kicked out and knocked one of the men backwards into Carmichael, sending them both to the floor and the laser gun across the room.  
  
Things got a bit blurry after that. Seto still couldn't remember how he had gotten away and he glared at the room, the unpleasant memories angering him. "You won't be able to run forever, Carmichael," he muttered.  
  
A panel in the wall opened and Tea fell in, looking shocked.  
  
Seto was shocked as well. "What are you doing here?!" he demanded.  
  
Tea stood up and looked around. "I . . . I fell down here," she said slowly. "I was up in some weird room and I opened a panel in the wall or something. . . ." She trailed off, staring at the room in horror. "What is this place?!"  
  
"You don't want to know," Seto replied, steering her away from the blood-stained wall.  
  
"It looks like a torture chamber!" Tea cried, her eyes wide.  
Seto didn't answer.  
****  
"Cindy, what're you doing?!" Joey exclaimed, backing up.  
  
The girl smirked. "It's been fun hanging out with you, Joey, but all good things must come to an end." She moved closer, stroking Joey's cheek with the barrel of one of her laser guns.  
  
Joey pulled away in disgust. "Man, Cindy, I thought you were a sweet girl! How could you do this?!"  
  
Cindy tossed her head. "Very easily. I've been infiltrating your little group all this time, finding out your suspicions, your suspects, and where you'd be investigating next."  
  
"Whoa, so you've been working for the bad guys this whole time?" Tristan looked horrified.  
  
"That's right," Cindy smirked. "And now you two will both die!"  
  
"But I thought Oliver Brown was one of the good guys!" Tristan burst out in complete confusion.  
  
"Nothin' makes sense!" Joey said in frustration.  
  
"Well, he may be Carmichael's business partner, but he's secretly working as his rival," Cindy told them with a sneer. "It's him, not Carmichael, who's working with the mysterious 'aliens' to take over the world. Carmichael wants to rule the world too, but he doesn't have an alien army backing him up, only his pathetic followers in his secret society."  
  
"When Carmichael came over today, he didn't say anything about you kids," Oliver said. "He was just angry about the uproar at his studio and wondered if I knew something about it."  
  
"But Oliver knew that you guys had talked to Carmichael, thanks to me," Cindy put in, "so he pretended that that's what Carmichael had come to tell him."  
  
Tristan looked nervously at Joey. "Why is it that the crooks always reveal their plots right before they kill the good guys?" he gulped.  
  
"Don't worry!" Joey tried to sound confident as they were surrounded on all sides by Oliver, Cindy, and the alien-creatures. "I'll think of something."  
  
"Yeah, but will it be too late?" Tristan shot back as their captors' guns all clicked, prepared to fire.  
****  
Bakura and Mai stood tensely in the shadows as mysterious footsteps grew closer, coming up the stairs and then stopping just outside the door. Yami Bakura came out of the Ring to join the nervous teens.  
  
"Yami, you're too weak to fight!" Bakura gasped.  
  
Yami Bakura growled in reply. "Who goes here?" he yelled.  
  
There was a long silence, and then a familiar voice said slowly, "Yami Bakura?"  
  
"Yugi?" Mai exclaimed.  
  
The door opened and a flashlight clicked on, revealing the spiky-haired teen. "It's me, Mai," Yugi confirmed and began using the flashlight to stare around at his surroundings.  
  
"But how in the world did you get here?" Bakura wanted to know.  
  
"I'm not sure," Yugi replied. "I was in a long tunnel deep in a UFO. Somehow it led me here."  
  
"A UFO?!" Bakura said in disbelief.  
  
"Hey, I hate to ask, Yugi, but it wasn't you cackling like a maniac, was it?" Mai asked.  
  
"It wasn't me," Yugi said, looking concerned.  
  
"Then there must be someone else in here," Bakura said worriedly.  
  
He couldn't have been more right. With another evil laugh, the headless phantom began to materialize in front of them. When it spotted Yami Bakura glaring at it, the monstrosity backed up, completely bowled over. "You should have been destroyed!" it said finally in its scratchy voice.  
  
"Well, as you can see, I haven't been," Yami Bakura growled. "And now you shall pay for what you tried to do." He reached for his card deck.  
  
"Wait!" Yugi said sternly. He turned to the phantom. "Tell us who you are," he requested.  
  
"Your worst nightmare," it hissed in reply. "Now you will all perish!" 


	17. Trapped!

Note: Just the usual this-is-not yaoi reminder ^_~  
  
  
"So, what do we do now?" Mai asked, backing up.  
  
"I've had enough of this!" Yugi said sternly, stepping up next to the headless phantom as the Millennium Puzzle started to glow.  
  
"I am familiar with the Millennium Items," the phantom hissed, "and I can more than stand up to them!"  
  
"Perhaps so, but can you stand up to more than one?" Yami Bakura growled, and the Millennium Ring glowed as well.  
  
The headless phantom backed up, looking a bit startled. Then it started to laugh. "Your powers are pathetic compared to mine!" It wagged a bony finger at Yami Bakura. "Remember, your card tricks are useless against me!"  
  
"I do have other tricks, you know," Yami Bakura sneered.  
  
"We shall see who comes out on top," Yugi said stonily, glaring at the wraith. He turned to Yami Bakura. "This once, we must work together. Are you with me?"  
  
Yami Bakura didn't look happy, but he nodded in agreement. "Let's be rid of this ridiculous creature!"  
  
With that, the two enemies united to fight their mutual foe. Bakura and Mai watched, wide-eyed, as the Millennium Items' powers clashed in the air with the phantom's, creating mini-explosions and fireworks. The phantom was thrown back, and then Yugi was as well.  
  
"Oh my!" Bakura cried.  
  
"Yugi! Are you hurt?" Mai exclaimed worriedly.  
  
Yugi pulled himself up. "I'm alright," he assured her. He and Yami Bakura shared a look and then turned to face the phantom again.  
  
"Be gone to the Shadow Realm!" the two Item holders screamed forcefully.  
  
Their powers once again collided in the air with the phantom's, and for several long, tense moments, it looked as if the wraith would win. A huge explosion rocked the attic and Bakura and Mai were thrown back.  
  
"What's happening?!" Mai gasped.  
  
"I don't know," Bakura said worriedly, trying to see through the thick smoke.  
  
"Yugi!" Mai called frantically. "Can you hear us?" There was no response.  
  
After what seemed like an eternity the dust finally began to clear, and the two teens stared into the darkness frantically. Two silhouetted figures stood there, proud and undefeated. The phantom was gone. Yugi and Yami Bakura had won.  
  
"Yugi!" Mai said in relief.  
  
"Thank goodness you both defeated that horrible creature," Bakura declared, walking over to them. He touched his Yami's shoulder gently. "Yami, are you alright?" he asked worriedly. Yami Bakura froze, then toppled backward into the boy's arms in a dead faint and was still. Bakura gasped. "Yami! Oh, I knew you were too weak to fight!"  
  
Yugi looked a bit worn out himself as he turned to examine Bakura's collapsed Yami. "He'll be alright," Yugi assured the worried boy. "But he shouldn't fight any more headless phantoms any time soon," he added wryly.  
  
Bakura smiled vaguely at that and looked down at his Yami, who was starting to wake up. He prayed that there wouldn't be any more dangerous things happening on this case.  
  
"Is that creepy thing gone for good?" Mai asked.  
  
Yugi paused. "I hope so," was all he said.  
****  
"Got any last words?" Oliver sneered.  
  
Joey looked around wildly. "Eh, I don't suppose you'd believe the Loch Ness Monster is standing behind you?"  
  
"Nice try," Oliver laughed. "I think you'll have the honor of being the first to go." He pointed the gun at Joey's chest.  
  
Joey gulped. Oh man . . . what am I gonna do?! he thought to himself. I got us into this . . . I've gotta get us out of it! He had one idea . . . it was risky, but he'd have to try it anyway.  
  
Without warning, he struck out and kicked Oliver in the knees, sending him crashing to the floor. Cindy and the others paused and lowered the guns just slightly, staring in shock.  
  
"Come on! We gotta get outta here!" Joey declared, grabbing Tristan's arm and dashing into the kitchen.  
  
"They're shooting at us!" Tristan yelled.  
  
"Well then, hurry before they don't miss!" Joey exclaimed as the aliens chased after them in hot pursuit. Glass and china shattered all around them as guns went off. One round of laser fire caught the collar of Joey's jacket and he went down.  
  
Tristan gasped. "Oh man! Come on, buddy, you can't be dead!" He grabbed the other boy's body and dragged him out through the back door and into the yard. He didn't have a second to lose, not with the criminals on their trail.  
  
"Tristan! Hey, I'm alright!" Joey, not particularly enjoying being dragged along, exclaimed suddenly.  
  
Tristan stopped and gasped. "Joey, you were shot down!"  
  
"No time to explain, man, they're gainin' on us!" Joey jumped up and ran madly into the next yard, with Tristan running alongside. They ran onto the porch and knocked frantically. "Hey! Open the door! Please!" Joey yelled.  
  
"Someone's trying to kill us!" Tristan added.  
  
The door was flung open by a startled woman in curlers and a robe. "I heard the shots!" she declared. "Quick—come in, come in!"  
  
"Oh wow, thanks, ma'am," Joey exclaimed. "Can we use your phone to call the police?"  
  
"Go right ahead," the woman said, pointing to the phone on the wall.  
  
After the call had been made, the boys thanked the woman profusely and she insisted that they stay there until the officers arrived.  
  
"But you're not safe with us here, ma'am," Tristan protested. "Our attackers are probably surrounding your house right now!"  
  
"Oh pish!" the woman replied, waving her hands in a dismissive manner. "I can't let you boys go wandering around outside when an army of people is trying to kill you!" She stared at them curiously. "Why are they after a couple of nice boys like you anyway?"  
  
"We know too much," Joey sighed, running a hand through his hair.  
****  
"Kaiba, what's going on?!" Tea demanded. "What are we going to do?!"  
  
Seto didn't answer. He wasn't entirely sure he knew what to do himself.  
  
An evil laugh echoed throughout the room. "Ah, Seto Kaiba! Once again you have returned. What do you think you are, a homing pigeon?!"  
  
Tea gasped and Seto looked around suspiciously before discovering Carmichael's image on a small video screen. The man had obviously been watching them, but for how long, Seto didn't know. However, he did know that the screen hadn't been there when he had first fallen into the room.  
  
Now the boy glared at Carmichael in outrage. "You're going to pay for all the evil acts you've done!" he declared.  
  
Carmichael only laughed. "I don't think so, Seto Kaiba. You will die by laser fire before this night is over, and so will all the others!"  
  
"You should be ashamed of yourself!" Tea cried indignantly as the screen went blank.  
  
"We have to get out of here," Seto said grimly. "I have the feeling that he's going to try shooting us down any minute."  
  
Sure enough, laser beams then began to ricochet around the room. Tea screamed as one narrowly missed hitting her and burned a hole through the plaster in the wall.  
  
"To be hit with a bolt means instant death!" Carmichael's voice crowed from somewhere.  
  
"What a comforting thought," Tea muttered.  
  
"This way," Seto directed, pulling the cover off an old ventilator shaft. "You go first. I'll be right behind you."  
  
Tea stared doubtfully, but only for a second, and then quickly climbed into the shaft. When she heard Seto climb in after her, she breathed a sigh of relief and started moving forward.  
  
"That was too easy," Seto said grimly. "Carmichael is toying with us."  
  
"You mean he did that just for fun?!" Tea said in horror.  
  
"I think you can count on it," Seto replied angrily. "And he'll definitely try again. But next time it won't just be his idea of a game—it'll be to kill."  
  
"What should we do?" Tea asked.  
  
Seto paused, thinking. "We can't go to the authorities without solid proof," he said finally. "We'll have to keep looking."  
  
When they exited the ventilator shaft—which came out in a long tunnel—they were both surprised to find Yugi, Mai, and Bakura coming from the opposite direction.  
  
"How did you guys get here?" Tea exclaimed.  
  
"Good question," Mai said slowly. "And where exactly is 'here'?"  
  
"We must be back inside the UFO," Yugi mused.  
  
The two groups exchanged stories and then tried to figure out what their next plans would be as they continued down the tunnel.  
  
"It is true that we still need proof to convict these criminals," Yugi said slowly. "We will have to split up again and keep searching."  
  
By now they had reached the end of the tunnel and Yugi opened the door. They were back in the control room, and the door at the other end was still open!  
  
"Let's leave this creepy saucer while we still can," Tea said with a shudder, and the others agreed. Hopefully they would be able to find the proof they needed elsewhere on the grounds.  
****  
Joey and Tristan, meanwhile, had talked to the police and an All-Points Bulletin had been issued for Oliver Brown and Cindy Bradford, who had both escaped—along with their alien army. The boys were afraid that the others were in danger at the studio, so they told the police about everything and were soon on their way there in a squad car.  
  
"You kids really should leave this kinda stuff to the trained professionals," the officer driving said with a sigh, shaking his head.  
  
"Hey, we're pretty good at this kinda stuff!" Joey replied with one of his "I'm da bomb" grins. Tristan rolled his eyes.  
  
When they arrived at the studio, the officer ordered the boys to stay close by him, and they reluctantly agreed. However, almost as soon as they entered another strange alien army attacked them, and somehow Joey and Tristan got separated from the policeman during the ensuing frenzied battle.  
  
"Somehow, I don't think he's going to be too pleased about this," Tristan remarked.  
  
Joey shrugged. "Hey, we'll blame it on the aliens. Right now we need to find Yug and the others!"  
  
They started wandered around the grounds curiously, looking for any sign of their friends.  
  
Suddenly Joey stopped, having spotted a suspicious-looking figure peering around the side of a building. "Hey, you there! Stop!" the boy yelled, running toward the person.  
  
"Joey, wait!" Tristan protested. "I think that's . . ."  
  
But before he could finish, Joey had tackled the small form and brought him to the ground. "Alright, you!" the Brooklyn boy said threateningly, "what're you doin' sneakin' around spyin' on us?!"  
  
"Oh, let me up!" a familiar voice replied angrily.  
  
Joey blinked in surprise. "Mokuba?!" he said in disbelief.  
  
"It sure is!" the younger boy declared.  
  
Joey loosened his grip and backed away, still staring in disbelief. "What in the world are you doin' here, kid?!" he demanded.  
  
"Looking for you guys, and especially my big brother!" Mokuba replied, standing up and dusting himself off.  
  
"Well, it ain't safe around these parts!" Joey objected.  
  
Mokuba rolled his eyes. "Then you sure shouldn't be hanging around!"  
  
"Hey!! What's that supposed to mean?!" Joey said indignantly.  
  
"Alright, alright, enough of that," Tristan sighed, walking up to them. "We're looking for the others too, so you might as well come with us," he said to Mokuba.  
****  
Seto and Tea, meanwhile, had disappeared into a building marked "Employees Only."  
  
"If all the crew members are part of the secret organization, there should be some proof in here," Seto decided as they walked down the deserted halls.  
  
"Hey!" Tea exclaimed suddenly. "Look! Isn't that the guard we talked to when we were here before?" She pointed up ahead to a figure coming around a corner.  
  
"It certainly is," Seto replied.  
  
The guard, noticing them, turned and ran back the other way.  
  
"Come back here!" Seto yelled angrily as he and Tea gave chase.  
  
"Why do I have the feeling that he's not going to stop?" Tea sighed.  
  
As they ran down the hall, a panel in the floor opened up abruptly and the two teens fell through, falling to the hard floor below. Seto crashed down first, and then Tea fell across him with a scream, causing him to grunt in surprise and pain.  
  
Tea picked herself up slowly and looked around. "Where are we?" she gasped, shivering. "Wherever it is, it feels like ice!"  
  
Seto also got up. He stared at the cold walls suspiciously and then at what looked like cartons of popsicles and ice cream lined against the walls. Frost covered the cartons, walls, and floor, and it was so cold that the boy could see his breath in the air. "We're in a walk-in freezer," he deduced grimly. He tried the heavy door. "And we're locked in." 


	18. Tragic Events

Note: Major Kleenex warning!!! **WAAAH!!!**  
  
  
For Tea, this was just about the last straw. She wanted this case to be over and done with now—not to be trapped in this prison! She knew they wouldn't last very long in this place and she crossed her arms in irritation. "Of all people to be locked in a freezer with!" she muttered angrily.  
  
Seto grunted in reply and looked around for any possible escape from the icy mausoleum. The only way out seemed to be through the locked main door. "If I can break the glass in the window, I can reach around and unlock the door from the outside," he decided, grabbing a nearby crate and throwing it at the pane. The window didn't budge.  
  
Tea watched him try in vain to get the glass to break and then picked up a crate of her own to throw. When the window still remained completely intact, she sighed in frustration. "There has to be another way out!" she declared.  
  
"The only other way is through the panel in the ceiling, and I doubt we could climb up there," Seto replied coldly, glancing up at the roof high above them.  
  
"Maybe there's another ventilator shaft," Tea suggested.  
  
"If there is, it's most likely turned on," Seto stated flatly. "It would be almost impossible to travel through it."  
  
Tea plopped down on a crate in despair. "Well, then what are we going to do?" she demanded. "Just wait for someone to come rescue us?!"  
  
"Hardly. We'd probably both be dead by then." Seto turned back to the door, idly wondering if it would be possible to remove it by the hinges.  
  
"Kaiba, we've been locked in here for ages!" Tea exclaimed, shivering. She had hardly come dressed for this occasion; she hadn't exactly been expecting to get trapped in a freezer.  
  
"Here."  
  
Tea looked up, startled. Seto was holding his trenchcoat out for her to take. She hesitated, blinking in surprise.  
  
"You're cold, aren't you?" Seto said impatiently.  
  
Tea nodded slowly. "Well, yes . . ."  
  
"Then just take it," Seto said irritably.  
  
Slowly Tea accepted the coat and wrapped it around her. "Thank you," she whispered softly.  
  
Seto didn't answer. He studied the window and then tried using a karate kick to get it to shatter.  
  
"I could help," Tea offered, not liking just standing by and watching.  
  
"I don't need any help," Seto replied, and Tea sighed in annoyance.   
  
"You're still the same old independent Seto Kaiba," she said angrily. "Why won't you ever accept help from anyone?"  
  
Seto grunted. "I can take care of things fine by myself," he insisted.  
****  
Joey, Tristan, and Mokuba, meanwhile, had met up with Yugi, Mai, and Bakura over by a building used for storing the cameras and other equipment.  
  
"Where's my brother?" Mokuba demanded.  
  
"I don't know," Yugi said honestly. "He went off with Tea to search for proof to convict these criminals." He looked concerned. "But this is no place for you, Mokuba. It's much too dangerous."  
  
"I don't care!" Mokuba said fiercely. "I don't want my brother to get hurt."  
  
"Hey, Kaiba's pretty tough," Joey said with a shrug.  
  
"He could still get hurt!" Mokuba shot back.  
  
Yugi and Mokuba wound up switching groups. Yugi's group was supposed to go investigate Carmichael's trailer while Bakura's group stayed at the storage building, but for some reason Yugi's group wound up not leaving the building either.  
  
"Man, this place is weird," Joey remarked with a shiver. "I feel like all the cameras are starin' right at us!"  
  
"Then stare back," Tristan quipped.  
  
"Yug, I thought we were leavin' this place," Joey sighed.  
  
"I did too, Joey," Yugi said grimly, "but I can't seem to remember where the door is."  
  
"Ah, come on, Yug, that's crazy!" Joey said in disbelief. "It's right there!" He went to walk towards the left and nearly fell down through a deep hole in the floor. Tristan and Yugi both had to grab the other boy to steady him.  
  
"I meant the door to go outside the building, Joey, not the door that takes you on a free trip to the afterlife," Yugi smiled.  
  
Joey looked frustrated. "What's goin' on around here?!" he exclaimed. "I know the door was right around here!"  
  
"Actually, Joey, I thought it was over there," Tristan replied, pointing in the opposite direction.  
  
"I'm afraid not," Yugi sighed. "I have a feeling that someone is playing mind tricks on us."  
  
"Really?" Tristan said in disbelief.  
  
"Eh, no offense, Yug, but that sounds kinda far-out," Joey added.  
  
Yugi shook his head. "Unfortunately, it *is* possible. And unless we can capture the one responsible, we may never find our way out of this building."  
  
They continued walking for what seemed like ages, not finding any clues nor any way out.  
  
"Man, I think we're goin' in circles!" Joey groaned. "That camera over there looks strangely familiar!"  
  
"Hey, here's something," Tristan announced. "A staircase leading up somewhere. You think we should check it out?"  
  
Yugi nodded. "We must search everywhere, both for clues and for the exit."  
  
The three boys walked up the stairs and looked around cautiously.  
  
"Be very careful," Yugi warned. "I can sense grave danger and evil up here."  
  
"Man, Yug, you're givin' me the heebie-jeebies!" Joey declared with a shudder.  
  
"You have good reason to beware," a nasty voice growled from out of nowhere.  
  
The teens stopped, looking around wildly. "Carmichael! Where're you hidin'?!" Joey demanded.  
  
The evil man stepped out from the shadows, a wicked smile on his face. "I was just waiting for you kids to come up here," he said nastily as he towered over them, a gleaming laser gun in his hand.  
  
Joey gulped. "Oh man . . . now we're in for it!"  
****  
Seto, meanwhile, had finally managed to knock the glass out of the freezer window and get the door open. "Come on," he said, grabbing Tea's hand and running out.  
  
"Gladly!" the girl exclaimed.  
  
They found themselves in a long, dimly-lighted hallway that didn't exactly look inviting. Tea looked around nervously.  
  
"This way," Seto directed, opening a door to a stairwell.  
  
"I hope you know what you're doing!" Tea muttered.  
  
When they arrived at the top, they were back near the door where they had entered. Tea paused, then took off the coat she was wearing and handed it back to Seto. "Thank you again," she said softly.  
  
Seto put the coat on and didn't answer. Instead he stopped and stared out through the plate-glass door, apparently having seen something startling.  
  
"What is it?" Tea asked impatiently.  
  
"I'm certain I just saw Mokuba in that building over there," Seto replied. He dashed out the door and Tea followed uncertainly.  
****  
"Wow, this place is pretty big for a storage building," Mai remarked, poking through some old cameras.  
  
"You said it!" Mokuba exclaimed, looking around worriedly. His eyes went wide. "Hey! Where's Bakura?!"  
  
"Huh?" Mai looked up. The silver-haired boy had vanished. "Well, now that's weird," she declared. "Bakura? Hey, where are you?" she called, to no avail.  
  
"He was standing right over here," Mokuba said, walking over near the wall and placing his hand on it. "Whoa!" he cried as a panel opened and sent him falling in.  
  
"Mokuba!" Mai gasped, then went over and pushed on the wall. With a scream, she disappeared into the secret room as well.  
****  
Carmichael sneered as he looked at the teens, the deadly gun still in hand. "It looks like you've all walked into my little lair," he hissed.  
  
Tristan shook his head. "Man, I've met some real creeps in my time, and you and Pegasus top the list!" he declared.  
  
"Imagine that—being compared to Maximillian Pegasus," Carmichael smirked, backing up slightly. "I think I'm honored."  
  
"You have committed many evil acts in your quest for power," Yugi said angrily, "and now it's time you were stopped!"  
  
"But I'm not easily stopped," Carmichael scoffed, "as you pathetic meddlers will find out soon enough."  
  
"Man, was Yugi right about you?" Joey demanded. "Did you use some kinda mind power on us so we wouldn't remember where the door is?!"  
  
Carmichael only cackled evilly. "Perhaps so, but *this* is not 'mind power'—this is real!" In a split-second movement, he had whipped his laser gun into firing position and pulled the trigger.  
  
"I won't let you hurt them!!" Yugi screamed, diving in front of the beam. With a cry of pain, the violet-eyed boy went down and lay lifeless.  
  
"Yugi!!" Joey and Tristan cried in unison.  
  
Even Carmichael was a bit startled at this turn of events and was momentarily caught off guard long enough for Bakura for come out of seemingly nowhere, knocking the weapon out of his hands and into Joey's. "That's quite enough of that!" the British boy said angrily, and instantly Carmichael was surrounded by the police.  
  
"You're under arrest for traitorous acts against the government . . . and for the murder of this boy," the first officer said sternly, outrage in his eyes.  
  
Carmichael looked around for a place to run and found nothing. His shoulders drooped in defeat.  
  
Joey dropped the laser gun and sank to his knees next to Yugi's body, tears in his eyes. "Oh man . . . why couldn't they have come just five minutes sooner?" he said softly. "Just five minutes sooner . . ."  
****  
On the opposite end of the building, Tea and Seto heard the horrifying scream and shot as well.  
  
Tea cried out, placing her hand over her heart as a stab of pain went through it. "Yugi!" she shrieked. She couldn't feel the boy's presence at all, just like when Pegasus had overwhelmed him in the Shadow Realm. She knew the worst had happened, but she couldn't accept it. "No . . . no . . . it's . . . it's not possible! He . . . he can't be . . ." She trailed off, turning to the boy standing next to her and burying her face in his dark trenchcoat, sobbing uncontrollably.  
  
Seto held the girl comfortingly, outrage in his eyes. How could someone do such an evil thing?  
  
Tea looked up, tears streaking her face. "They . . . they shot him! How . . . how could they?! Yugi would never hurt anyone! Never . . ."  
  
"I know," Seto said gently, just as laser fire struck a pole right next to them. "Now they're shooting at us!" he exclaimed indignantly. He grabbed Tea's hand and ran into the shadows.  
  
"Wait! What about the others?" Tea protested.  
  
"We can't help them if we're dead," Seto shot back, diving under a camera just as laser fire struck where they'd been only seconds before. He wondered frantically if Mokuba was alright.  
  
Suddenly all was silent. Tea looked around curiously from their hideout underneath a staircase in a twisted labyrinth. "What's happening?" she asked in a whisper.  
  
Seto didn't answer. He looked around suspiciously. Whoever was shooting at them wouldn't give up that easily. "Tea, get down!" he screamed abruptly.  
  
"Kaiba, what are you doing?!" Tea gasped as he pushed her to the floor. Laser fire exploded around them again, and all was chaos. When the shooting finally ceased, Tea lay still, her eyes wild and frightened. She heard footsteps walking further and further away and prayed that they wouldn't suddenly come near and find them.  
  
"That should take care of them," a cold voice said, and then there were grunts of agreement. A door opened and the snipers walked out, shutting it hard behind them.  
  
It was then that Tea realized that Seto's arm was draped across her shoulders limply. "Kaiba?" she whispered. "Kaiba, they're gone now."  
  
The boy didn't answer.  
  
"Oh, come on, Kaiba, don't always be so silent!" Tea scolded in frustration.  
  
When Seto still didn't reply—or even move—a cold chill ran up Tea's spine. She grabbed the boy's arm and shoved it aside, then rose up and turned to face him. "Kaiba?" she said softly. The boy's long bangs had fallen across his face and his other arm was flung out in front of him. He was completely still and motionless, and Tea had the dreadful suspicion in her mind that this boy had also been struck down. Shaking her head in disbelief, Tea pushed Seto over onto his back and stared at him. There was no sign of any movement in his chest, nor did he have a pulse or heartbeat. He was gone. "No! Not you too, Kaiba!" she cried, horrified. "Not you too!!" This was too much. First Yugi, and now Kaiba. . . . In the last ten minutes, Tea had lost them both. 


	19. Aftermath

Note: The Kleenex warning extends into this chapter.  
  
  
Joey picked up Yugi's still body, tears running down his face. "Oh man . . . why did it have to be this way? Why did Yugi havta . . ." He couldn't finish.   
  
The police had taken Carmichael away, and the teens had disappeared into the shadows. They didn't want to be interrogated just yet; too much had happened in the last fifteen minutes and they needed time to take it all in. This was a calamity they had never expected.  
  
"Yugi sacrificed himself for us," Tristan said softly.  
  
"Yug . . . you're a hero, man," Joey whispered.  
  
They stayed there for ages in silence, remembering Yugi's brave and selfless act, and then they realized that they needed to see if the others were alright.  
  
They walked down the hall, Joey carrying Yugi's body, when Bakura stopped suddenly. "Someone's crying," he exclaimed.  
  
"It sounds like Tea," Tristan realized.  
  
"Tea? What's wrong?" Joey called as they rounded a corner, then stopped short in shock.  
  
Tea, unaware that she was being observed, was kneeling next to Seto's still body. She clasped the boy's cold hands tightly, holding them to her forehead, and then let them go, sobbing uncontrollably. She brushed the long bangs away from Seto's closed blue eyes and stared at his pale complexion. "Goodbye, Seto Kaiba," she whispered.  
  
"Oh man, not him too!" Joey gasped.  
  
Tea started and looked up, her eyes red and puffy. When she saw Yugi's limp form in Joey's arms, the tears spilled over again. "Yugi!!" she cried in despair. "No . . . this is just a bad dream! . . . It's not real. . . . It can't be real!!" She stood up and took Yugi's body from Joey, holding the small boy close. "Yugi can't be gone. . . . He just *can't* be!!!" Yugi looked so innocent, so sweet. . . . Tea again collapsed on her knees next to Seto's body, cradling Yugi gently.  
  
"Seto!! Big brother!!" a young voice screamed, and Mokuba ran out of seemingly nowhere, Mai hot on his heels. The small boy fell across Seto's body, embracing him tightly. "Wake up, Seto!! You've . . . you've just gotta!!" He shook the older boy gently, his gray eyes pleading for a response.  
  
"Your brother was very brave, Mokuba," Tea said shakily, "and so was Yugi."  
  
"'Was'?" Mai repeated, looking horrified. "You're not saying that they're . . ." She trailed off, seeing by the looks in the other teens' eyes that the boys were both gone.  
  
"No! It's not true!!" Mokuba cried. "Wake up, big brother!! Please!! Please . . ." His tears splashed on Seto's face.  
  
"Sorry, kid," Joey said softly, brushing away a tear of his own. "Man, I'm sorry . . ."  
  
"Don't say that! He's not dead!!" Mokuba screamed. "You . . . you . . . can hear me, can't you, Seto?" he said pleadingly. There was no answer.  
  
Tea gently touched Yugi's cheek. "Yugi, you can't leave us!" she cried. "It's not your time!! . . . Please, Yugi . . . come back to us! . . ."  
  
"Seto . . . I still need you, big brother!" Mokuba screamed. "Please . . . answer me!!"  
  
A bright light suddenly illuminated the room and a girl with long, mint-green hair and a flowing white dress was standing there.  
  
"Eh, who are you?" Joey asked, confused.  
  
Bakura's eyes went wide, recognizing the girl. "Kasumi!" he exclaimed.  
  
"You know her?" Tristan blinked in surprise.  
  
Bakura nodded. "She rescued me from those horrid vampyres."  
  
Kasumi smiled, then looked down sadly. "I am so sorry this tragedy has happened," she said softly. "It was not supposed to happen."  
  
Mokuba looked up, recognition in his own eyes. "You! You're that weird girl who was singing in the backyard last month!!"  
  
"Yes, that was I," Kasumi replied.  
  
"You're the girl Kaiba was so freaked about?!" Joey said in disbelief.  
  
Kasumi nodded.  
  
"What did you do—tell him he was gonna die or somethin'?" Joey demanded.  
  
"What we spoke of is confidential between the two of us," Kasumi told him. "But if Seto Kaiba had wished to tell you about it, he would have been free to do so."  
  
"But what's happened now?" Mokuba sobbed. "My brother . . . is he . . . is he really . . ."  
  
Kasumi knelt down next to the grief-stricken boy and laid her hand on his shoulder silently.  
  
"No . . . no, he can't be!!" Mokuba screamed. "He said he'd always be there for me!! He said he wouldn't leave me!!" The younger boy laid his head on Seto's still chest and dissolved into tears.  
  
When the teens turned to see Kasumi's response, they discovered that she, too, was crying. "And so he never will, little Mokuba," she whispered. "He will always be with you."  
  
Mokuba, realizing she was speaking in the mystical, supernatural sense, shook his head. "He's gotta come back!! He . . . he would if he could . . . I know he would!" he declared.  
  
"Yugi would too . . . if he could," Tea whispered, a tear falling onto the boy's ashen cheek.  
  
Yugi's eyes fluttered. Tea gasped.  
  
"What? What is it?" Joey demanded.  
  
"Yugi . . . he's alive!" Tea exclaimed.  
  
"What?! That's impossible!" Joey declared. He wanted so badly for it to be true, but . . . how could it be?  
  
Kasumi looked up, her eyes expressing disbelief, and at the same time, hope.  
  
Yugi groaned, shifting in Tea's arms.  
  
"Whoa . . . he is alive," Tristan said softly.  
  
Yugi's violet eyes opened halfway. "Tea?" he rasped in apparent disbelief.  
  
Tea felt like shouting for joy. "Oh Yugi!" she cried happily, embracing him. Yugi smiled weakly and hugged her back, and was quickly surrounded by Joey, Tristan, Mai, and Bakura.  
  
"Oh man, buddy!" Joey exclaimed, laying a hand on the other boy's shoulder. "You were a real goner there for a while!"  
  
"Hey, Joey," Yugi smiled, looking at his friend. "It's great to see you again! I . . . I thought I wasn't coming back . . ." He trailed off.  
  
After Tristan, Mai, and Bakura had each gotten to speak to their revived friend, Yugi looked around, blinking worriedly. "You're all alright, aren't you?" he asked.  
  
"Sure, Yug, we're fine," Joey replied. "You saved us, pal."  
  
Yugi relaxed slightly, but still looked concerned. "Where . . . where's Kaiba?" he asked.  
  
The teens looked at each other. Yugi was still very weak, and the last thing he needed right now was a horrible shock. Finally Tea spoke up. "He's . . . he's gone away," she said softly.  
  
Yugi blinked. "Gone away where?" he queried, but before anyone could think of how to answer, the boy had wearily fallen asleep in Tea's arms.  
  
Another bright light flashed and Yami Yugi appeared. It suddenly dawned on Joey that this was the first time he had seen the ancient pharaoh since Yugi had been shot down. "You were wise not to reveal the truth," the spirit said now.  
  
"Hey, man, where've you been, anyway?" Joey demanded.  
  
Yami Yugi sighed, looking at Yugi's sleeping form. "I've been fighting to bring Yugi back," he answered.  
  
"Well, you succeeded, man," Joey said softly.  
  
Yami Yugi shook his head. "I didn't bring him back," he replied. "It wasn't his time to leave this earth. And Yugi wanted desperately to come back. So he has."  
  
Mokuba looked away. He was happy that Yugi was alright, but what about his brother? "Seto . . . please, big brother! You've gotta wake up!! You've . . . you've just gotta!!"  
  
Kasumi's heart broke. She hadn't been expecting Yugi to revive, but she knew Seto Kaiba was dead. "Mokuba . . ." she began slowly.  
  
"No, no, he's gotta be okay!!" Mokuba sobbed, laying his hand on Seto's shoulder. "Big brother, I love you!! I love you!! You promised you'd stay with me!! You . . . you promised!! . . ." The little boy trailed off, hanging his head. Seto wasn't able to answer him, and he knew it.  
  
Tea looked down, feeling hot tears come to her eyes. She was overjoyed that Yugi was alive, but at the same time, she mourned the death of the young businessman. She couldn't believe Seto Kaiba was really . . . gone.  
  
Kasumi was also crying. Why must it be so? she asked, looking Heavenward. Why must this young life be taken away from those who love him and from those he loves?  
  
She watched Mokuba hug his brother's body, longing more than anything to change this tragedy, but knowing that it was far beyond her power to do so.  
  
What happened next was nothing short of miraculous.  
  
As Mokuba sobbed, finally realizing that his brother must surely be gone from this world, Seto suddenly drew a ragged breath and coughed.  
  
Mokuba looked up, his gray eyes wide. "Seto?!" he said in disbelief. "Oh, he's alive!! He's alive!!!"  
  
Kasumi perked up. Oh, can it be? she exclaimed hopefully in her mind.  
  
Now Seto was silent and still once again, but he was breathing. He had come back to life. Mokuba and the others watched him anxiously, and then the independent boy's deep blue eyes fluttered open. "Mokuba," he rasped softly, managing to lay his hand on his brother's shoulder.  
  
The younger boy's eyes lighted up. "Seto!!"  
  
Seto smiled at him. "It's me, kid."  
  
"Oh Seto!!" Mokuba embraced the older boy tightly, tears of joy falling from his eyes. "You came back!! You came back!!"  
  
Seto held his brother as if he never wanted to let go. "I couldn't leave you, Mokuba," he said softly. "I could never leave you."  
  
Kasumi stood up, her hands clasped in a prayer of gratitude. "Praise the Lord!" she whispered. She smiled on the reunited group and then silently vanished the same way she had come—in another bright light. The teens and Mokuba—saying their own prayers of thanksgiving—didn't even notice she had left at first.  
  
Tea's eyes were shining. Yugi had revived, and now so had Seto Kaiba! Maybe now things could finally get back to normal. "It's a miracle!" she exclaimed, and the others whole-heartedly agreed.  
  
"Hey, Kaiba," Joey said softly, "welcome back, man."  
  
Seto looked up, surprised, then slowly nodded in acknowledgment.  
  
Bakura, suddenly remembering the mysterious Kasumi, turned around to look for her. "She's gone," he said, puzzled.  
  
"Kasumi?" Joey asked, and Bakura nodded.  
  
Seto was visibly shaken. "Kasumi?" he repeated.  
  
"That's right," Bakura said.  
  
"Hey, Kaiba, what's up with you and that Kasumi girl anyway?" Joey demanded.  
  
Seto was silent at first but then replied typically, "That is none of your concern, Wheeler."  
  
Tea rolled her eyes and smiled at the same time. Things were definitely back to normal, and she wouldn't want it any other way. 


	20. Epilogue

Notes: Many thanx to everyone who took the time to read and review this fic! ^^ I hope y'all will stick around for my next Yu-Gi-Oh! ventures, which will include a holiday story! ^^ BTW, Kaiba's "E.T." comment is not mine to take credit for. ^_~ It's from an episode of "Diagnosis Murder" ^^ I meant to say that before, but I forgot ;) Hehe . . .  
  
  
Epilogue  
  
The teens remained in the building for another half hour or more. Yugi awoke again, and he and Seto both rested peacefully, regaining their strength—Seto against a wall with Mokuba curled up at his side, and Yugi against some old crates—while accounts of everyone's misadventures were exchanged all around. Yugi was horrified to hear that Kaiba had also been shot down, but was immensely relieved that the other boy was alright now.  
  
"Man, that was some case," Tristan said, shaking his head. "I can't believe we actually made it out of that one alive!"  
  
The others were silent, knowing how true those words were. They had come much too close to losing Yugi and Seto. Both boys had been dead by all physical signs—and even the mysterious Kasumi had said they were gone—but then they had both miraculously returned to life.  
  
"If everyone's alright now, I suppose we should be leaving," Bakura said finally.  
  
"Yeah, Grampa must be really worried about us by now," Yugi remarked, and tried to stand up shakily.  
  
"Yugi, are you sure you can stand?" Tea said worriedly.  
  
"Sure, Tea," Yugi replied with a smile, and nearly toppled over. "Well, I guess I could be wrong," the boy sighed.  
  
"Yugi, let me help you," Yami Yugi said, and Yugi was too weak to protest.  
  
Seto flatly refused any help—as Tea had expected—and somehow managed to limp to the door by himself, with Mokuba walking alongside him worriedly.  
  
Bakura lagged behind all the others, staring at the room thoughtfully. "Kasumi . . ." he said softly. Other than Seto Kaiba, he had the strongest ties to the mysterious girl. He would always be immensely thankful that she had stepped in and saved him from the vampyres back in October.  
  
"Are you coming, kiddo?" Mai asked, turning to look back at him.  
  
Bakura looked startled, then nodded. "Yes, I'm coming, Mai." He wondered if Kasumi was some kind of guardian angel sent to watch over them.  
****  
Everyone was riding back to the Game Shop in Seto's limousine when a police car pulled them over.  
  
"Are you kids alright in here?" the first officer asked, looking through the rolled-down window.  
  
"We are now," Tea smiled.  
  
The officers looked at each of the youth curiously, and then they started upon seeing Yugi. "Aren't you the boy I heard about who was shot down?" the second one asked.  
  
Yugi looked like he wasn't quite sure what to say. He had just gotten off the phone with his grandfather, who had been beside himself with worry. Yugi had tried to glaze over his and Kaiba's experiences, but he knew he would have to tell his grandfather about them eventually. "Well . . . I'm alright now," he said at last to the policemen.  
  
The first officer scrutinized him for what seemed like ages, and then turned away, shaking his head. "One more strange thing to add to the list," they heard him mutter.  
  
"Why did you pull us over?" Seto demanded to know.  
  
"We saw your limo driving away from the movie studio," the first officer replied. "We had heard there was a bunch of kids trying to solve the mystery and decided we should see if they—you—were all alright."  
  
"That's right," the second one agreed. He looked at the teens and Mokuba curiously. "Is one of you Joey Wheeler?" he asked.  
  
"That'd be me," Joey grinned.  
  
The officer nodded. "Oliver Brown and his assistant, Cindy Bradford, have been captured and arrested," he announced.  
  
"Now that's somethin' I've been wantin' to hear!" Joey grinned, exchanging a high-five with Tristan.  
  
"The 'alien army' turned out to be a bunch of robots," the officer informed them. "Oliver Brown was planning to take over the world, but he didn't have the aid of real aliens."  
  
"Eh, I might've expected that," Joey shrugged.  
  
"It was Oliver Brown who created those disasters at the studio, wasn't it?" Yugi asked.  
  
"That's right," the officer confirmed, "but it was Carmichael who nearly killed Kim Bates and drugged her boyfriend. Kim had not been a part of the secret society Carmichael had organized, and when she found out about it, she threatened to tell the police. First Carmichael tried killing her, but that didn't scare her off, so then he hurt her fiancé to make her clam up."  
  
"What a creep!" Joey declared hotly.  
  
"What about the guy Kaiba met up with at the convention?" Tristan wanted to know.  
  
Seto had already figured out about him, but since he didn't particularly want to explain, he decided to let the officer do it.  
  
"Well," the officer replied, "he actually woke up at the hospital a few hours ago and agreed to tell us what had happened. He had met up with Carmichael's cronies on the night when Seto Kaiba was taken prisoner. They had hurt the boy with something and were dragging him along with them."  
  
Mokuba bristled in outrage.  
  
"They told the man that Mr. Kaiba was dead and that unless he wanted his wife and kids to be hurt, he would have to keep quiet and forget what he had seen," the officer continued grimly.  
  
"Oh my! How horrible!" Bakura gasped.  
  
The officers nodded in agreement, then paused.  
  
"Here's the really interesting part," the first one said. "Carmichael and his cronies insist that they never flew the alien spaceship on their set; it can't even fly. It was built for the ruse of the alien movie and was connected up with a strange underground tunnel that leads to the mansion at Summit Hills. The alien burglars people saw were more robots, made to feed into the rumors of alien invasion and keep people away from the mansion."  
  
"Yeah, but they weren't countin' on us!" Joey grinned. "We just wouldn't stay away!"  
  
"The army tested that UFO just a short while ago," the second one added. "For once, Carmichael was telling the truth—the thing can't fly."  
  
"But then . . . does that mean that . . ." Yugi trailed off, his eyes wide.  
  
". . . That the weird lights in the sky might've been from real UFOs?!" Joey finished.  
  
"That's right," the first one confirmed. "It looks like Domino City may well have been visited by real aliens as well as fake ones."  
  
"Oh my," Bakura said softly.  
  
"You're Bakura, right?" the second officer asked, and the boy nodded. "Well, that piece of metal in your front yard can't be traced," the officer told him. "It remains completely unidentified."  
  
Shortly after that unsettling revelation, the officers let the amateur sleuths go on their way, and they talked again about the strange things that had happened.  
  
"There's one thing that still doesn't make sense," Tea said, shaking her head. "What was that awful headless phantom thing?!"  
  
Yami Yugi sighed. He had obviously learned a few things since the last battle with the wraith. "Well, it seems that it was inhabiting that abandoned house at Summit Hills," he told them, "and it didn't like Carmichael and the others using the secret tunnels in there."  
  
Mai nodded. "So Carmichael told it that if it would get rid of us, they would stop using the tunnels and leave Tall, Dark, and Creepy alone."  
  
"How did you find that out, Mai?" Yugi asked, puzzled.  
  
"We fell through some weird panel in the wall in that storage warehouse and found some kind of secret office Carmichael was using," Mokuba replied.  
  
"He had written some memos about the wraith and what he was planning to do about it," Mai said.  
  
"Unfortunately, the identity of the phantom is still a mystery," Yami Yugi said grimly.  
  
"Will it be able to return?" Tea asked worriedly.  
  
The pharaoh sighed. "I don't know," he admitted.  
  
Mai shook her head. "I can't believe you guys have solved two other mysteries," she declared. "This detective stuff is way more dangerous than I would've ever imagined!"  
  
"I hope this case will be our last," Tea said fervently.  
****  
When they arrived at the Game Shop, Grampa Muto was standing outside waiting for them.  
  
"Yugi!" he cried happily, and looked at all of the teens—and Mokuba and Yami Yugi—with relief. "You're all alright!" he smiled.  
  
"Grampa!" Yugi smiled back excitedly. Joey and Tristan helped their friend out of the limo and he hugged his grandfather, so happy to be home at last.  
  
Grampa Muto invited them all to stay for a while and relax and most of them accepted, except for Seto and Mokuba, who just wanted to get back to their own house.  
  
Tea was the last to exit the limo, and as she did, she hesitated and then turned back. "Kaiba . . ." she began slowly.  
  
The boy looked up with his usual deadpan expression. "What?"  
  
"I . . . I wanted to thank you," Tea stammered. "For . . . for everything."  
  
Seto nodded slowly but didn't speak. Tea hadn't expected him to say much, if anything, so she said goodbye and then quickly left.  
  
Now that the Kaiba brothers were finally alone, Mokuba turned to Seto, his eyes shining. "Big brother, I'm so glad you came back!" he declared. "I . . . I thought I'd lost you!" The little boy paused. "And . . . and I just didn't know how I'd stand it if you were really . . ." He trailed off, a tear slipping down his cheek.  
  
Seto held Mokuba close. "It's alright, kid," he said softly. "You didn't lose me. You never will." He didn't know how he would keep that promise, only that he knew that somehow he had to. He breathed a prayer of thanks that he had been able to return this time.  
  
Mokuba stayed right by Seto's side as the chauffeur drove them back home. As long as they had each other, the brothers' worlds were complete.  
  
They rode in silence for a time, and then Mokuba suddenly gasped in surprise, staring at something in the sky. "Big brother, is that a flying saucer?!" he exclaimed.  
  
Seto looked up at a green light high above the trees. "Frankly, Mokuba, I couldn't care less," the older boy replied. "As long as the aliens don't bother us, I won't worry about bothering them."  
  
Mokuba giggled at that and soon fell asleep in the limo, exhausted from the long day.  
****  
When they arrived back at the Kaiba manor, Seto tenderly picked up his sleeping brother and carried him into the house. He gently tucked the little boy into bed and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Goodnight, kid," he whispered. "I love you."  
  
Mokuba stirred and opened his eyes. He was only half-awake, but he smiled and laid his hand over Seto's. "I love you, too, big brother," he said softly, and fell asleep again.  
  
Seto gently tousled his brother's hair and then glanced out the window at the green light up in the distance. "Go home, E.T.," he said wryly. "I'm going to bed." 


End file.
